Flawed Perfection

by Squiggles13

Summary:

Bucky Barnes has a lot to contend with in the 21st century. One difficult task after another is laid out in front of him: managing his new found freedom, attending therapy and working through his trauma. It's a struggle, but recovery is not a straight line, as his therapist so often likes to remind him.

He has to navigate this friendship / relationship / whatever it is with Sam all the while managing his guilt and shame for his years as the Winter Soldier, and his grief over Steve's death. Then of course there’s these new super soldiers that have appeared out of nowhere that have to be dealt with, along with the frustrating inclusion of new faces, like Walker, and the familiar, like Zemo.

And then there is another task, one that sometimes seems to be the most difficult task of all: learning to be kind to his past self.

Rewrite / fix it of TFATWS – you do not need to read the other parts of this series, this works as a standalone. Pre TFATWS to about three months after the series ends. Not just a rehash of the TV series, I like to bounce off canon and do my own thing. I generally update fortnightly.

Notes:

There are three things you need to know before beginning this story:

1) You do not need to read the other parts of the series. If you know Bucky's story then you can read this. Anything additional will be explained within the story itself, so you won’t be missing out on anything.

2) Steve is dead in this story, he died at the final battle in Endgame. In this series he and Bucky grew up as brothers and he would never leave, but I needed him to be absent. Therefore I had to kill him off.

3) This is a Sam/Bucky pairing and I promise a happy Sam/Bucky ending. But it is a slow burn with lots of bumps in the road, please be aware of that going in. And when I say slow burn, I mean in the sense that icebergs move faster! Sam has boundaries (as he should) and Bucky has a lot of issues to work through.

Please read the tags very carefully. This story contains heavy and potentially triggering themes surrounding mental health, suicidal ideation, sexuality and rape, trauma and recovery. I will put warnings at the top of chapters that I think may contain something particularly triggering but just be mindful of this going in that I can't warn for everything. This is Winter Soldier trauma. It's going to hurt. But I do promise a happy ending.

 

Obligatory disclaimer – I use British English words and spellings. I understand this is likely to be jarring to some readers, but I can’t do this differently.

Chapter 1: Surrounded by Absence

Act One - Not Myself

 

I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.

― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

 

 

 

 Surrounded by Absence

 

Three days.

That’s how long he’d lain in the ice and snow after falling from that damned train.

Despite not being fully aware, he remembered seeing the sky grow dark three times. He experienced moments of consciousness, interspersed with the intense pain that consumed his entire being. His shattered and broken body longed for the torment to cease.

Blood stained the snow beneath him. Three days, unable to die. Because of the serum injected by the Swiss doctor at Krausberg, he became resistant to being killed. He longed for death to relieve his suffering, but death eluded him.

The fall destroyed his body to the point where he couldn’t move.

Cold to the point of numbness.

He experienced the sensation of knives piercing his body all over.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, he realised he was still here… still alive… and…

Oh…

Oh God,

Oh God, please just let me die.

And then... voices emerged. The sound of footsteps crunching in the snow. Shouting. Someone found him. His confused mind failed to grasp the situation. Someone reached out to take his pulse, checked his breathing.

Then he heard words spoken in German. Despite his fluency in German, his mind struggled to comprehend them.

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

That he understood. And he could summon up enough power to say Ich spreche, but he didn’t. The last thing he wanted was to die with German words on his tongue. A man’s last words should be in his own language, not that of an enemy.

He then heard someone speaking English with a heavy accent.

The words he heard were, “you are alive.”

The sound of German filled the space as a man issued orders to his comrades.

“We will take care of you,” the same man said.

And then:

“Alles wird gut.”

All will be well.

 

With a sudden jolt, Bucky woke up and jerked himself forward from the floor. Sweaty and disoriented, his heart pounded as those three words repeated in his mind.

Alles wird gut

They deceived him with false reassurances and empty words before delivering him back to Hydra. With his consciousness slipping in and out, overwhelmed by the pain, and only somewhat aware of being lifted onto a stretcher and dragged away, he had believed them.

All will be well.

“What a fucking joke,” Bucky muttered, unable to shake off this new nightmare. His nightmares were usually haunted by the people he had killed as the Winter Soldier, but this one was different. His dreams mirrored his never-ending guilt, causing him to relive it over and over and provide him with additional names to add to his notebooks. He rarely dreamt of his own suffering.

He placed his head in his hands, aware of the dampness on his right hand from sweat, and took a moment to compose himself before observing his surroundings.

This occurrence was frequent - being awakened by a nightmare - and it always took some time to readjust and reassure himself that everything was alright, to remind himself that he had broken free from the nightmare that dominated his life for decades.

The television broadcasted a sports program. Sports didn’t interest Bucky, but he kept the television on for the light while sleeping. He needed to perceive his surroundings immediately upon opening his eyes, ensuring everything remained unchanged.

While scanning the room, his heart rate slowed, and his breathing became steady.

He could tell that everything was okay. The room had few things to check. Despite possessing a bedroom, Bucky favoured sleeping on the floor in the living area of his one-bedroom apartment. The furniture here comprised a television, a small table, and one chair for Dr Raynor’s minions when they came to babysit. Some light filtered through the blinds, which came with the apartment, just like the furniture had. He’d not seen the point in buying anything else.

Over on the kitchen counter he could see evidence of his mis-spent night. The presence of many empty beer cans and wine bottles revealed his futile and never-ending struggle to numb his sorrows. He’d tried everything to block out the memories and stop the nightmares. Alcohol and drugs. That damn serum running through his veins rendered everything ineffective.

He’d spent so long unable to remember anything and worked so hard to recover his memories that it was ironic that now his memories were coming back how hard he worked to repress them. Since his release from the Raft, recovering his memories had been a painful process. Memories, good and bad alike, brought their own pain. He had been with no memories for a long time. All he’d known for decades had been short periods of existence surrounded by absence. An existence filled with pain, confusion, grief, loss, and shame. Above all, there was shame.

As he observed his surroundings, he felt more calm. He didn’t feel entirely at ease. This place didn’t feel like home to him, and he never felt completely safe here. It wasn’t a home, not really, just a place he temporarily occupied. He absentmindedly massaged the area on his left shoulder where metal and skin met, more out of habit than actual discomfort. His metal arm from before always caused discomfort, but the new Wakandan vibranium arm was lighter and rarely caused pain.

He had arrived here a few weeks before Christmas. Following Steve’s death, after saving the universe from a mad genocidal alien, Bucky was imprisoned in the high-security ‘Raft’ for nearly two months before being freed.

He had no desire to be set free. He had come to terms with the idea of being locked up for the rest of his life and had almost begun to welcome it. He desired punishment, believing he deserved it. But no, that’s not what had happened. Instead, they pardoned him and set him loose on the world after a psychiatric evaluation determined that he did not pose a danger to others.

“Where do you want to go?” Ross had inquired, and Bucky didn’t even need to consider it.

“Brooklyn,” he replied instantly. He was going home. It wasn’t until he’d arrived here that he realised how little like home it truly was, and he probably would have been better off choosing anywhere else.

It took a little while, of course. He’d needed documentation, a bank account, money, somewhere to live, ID, all the stuff that is needed to exist in the modern world as a normal person. But eventually, they provided all of that and set him free.

His pardon, of course, had rules and conditions attached. Sam was present with him at the prison when Ross handed over a substantial amount of paperwork across the table, along with a pen for him to sign.

“You’re going to become a very wealthy man, Mr Barnes,” Ross said, summarising the contents of his pardon and the reparations he would receive. Bucky sat at the table, gazing without expression at the man in disbelief, questioning how he ended up in a situation where people were seriously considering setting him free. And then compensating him.

Sam grabbed the pile of papers and flipped through them.

“Maybe we should have a lawyer review this,” he suggested dubiously. In response, Bucky snatched them away and quickly scribbled his name on the last page. He didn’t make the effort to give it a read. What was the point? No-one had listened to him. He hadn’t wanted to be pardoned. he hadn’t wanted to be set free. Just others making choices for him. Such was the story of his life.

Bucky grabbed his phone to see what time it was. It was almost 10 in the morning. To his surprise, he discovered he had slept for just under five hours. Settling down onto the floor, he gazed upward at the ceiling, his thoughts rushing. He was certain that there was something he needed to remember, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

A loud knocking at the door caused him to jolt upright once more. Motionless, Bucky’s gaze fixated on the door, his mind in a frenzy. He was certain he had forgotten something.

Someone knocked on the door again. And then:

“Bucky, you there?”

Bucky winced upon hearing the familiar voice. It was Sam. It all came rushing back. The night before, Sam sent him a message. Bucky once again reached for his phone. There it was:

I’m in the area tomorrow, I can pop over about 10am, ok?

Bucky hadn’t replied to Sam’s message. He’d not talked or messaged Sam since about two weeks before Christmas, and that was now two months ago. But Sam had come anyway.

Bucky chose to pretend that he wasn’t at home. Quietly, he rose and moved towards the bedroom, but his foot collided with an object, sending it flying across the room. The object clattered against the wall, causing Bucky to wince for the second time. So much for being a deadly and competent assassin, he thought wryly as he stared in dismay as the object  - a knife – spun round in circles from the force of his kick.

“I heard that,” Sam said from behind the door. “I know you’re in there. Stop ignoring me.”

Bucky stopped pretending.

“Just a minute,” he exclaimed, urgently searching the room for yesterday’s shirt. Upon picking it up, he suddenly realised he couldn’t answer the door in this state. The shirt was stained with blood. Bucky glanced down at his body and muttered a curse under his breath, as he noticed that the self-inflicted cuts from earlier remained unhealed. He couldn’t bear the thought of Sam seeing him like this, especially after what had happened the last time they’d met.

As Bucky pondered his options, the knocking continued.

“Just give me a moment, for crying out loud!” he shouted and stormed into the bedroom to find something else to wear.

After finding something to wear that concealed the self-inflicted wounds on his right arm, Bucky reluctantly pulled the door open.

“About time,” Sam commented as Bucky stepped back, permitting him to enter. Sam stopped abruptly when he saw Bucky’s face.

“What happened to you?” he asked, gesturing.

Bucky wiped his face in confusion and groaned internally upon realising he had blood on it. He ignored Sam’s question as he wiped it off with his sleeve. Sam already knew about the things he got up to. What did it matter?

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Sam accused as soon as Bucky shut the door.

“Yes I have,” Bucky agreed. “I’m glad you noticed. Clearly didn’t work, as you showed up here anyway.”

That Sam was here, uninvited, bothered him.

And the place was in a state. Taking a quick look around the room, Bucky couldn’t help but imagine how terrible it must appear from Sam’s perspective. Empty cans and glass bottles filled the place, giving it a bleak and dirty look. The room appeared dark and depressing because of the lack of light. He felt further dismayed when he realised he’d left the knife on the floor and he knew Sam must have seen it.

He should have known better than to open the damn door.

“I may not be very savvy about modern communication, Sam,” he said, “but I wouldn’t think that anyone would interpret an absence of a response to mean ‘oh hey, just turn up whenever you want’.”

Ignoring him, Sam’s gaze fixed on Bucky’s blood-soaked shirt, that he’d neglected to hide, and then on the countless beer and wine bottles. The knife. Bucky experienced a sudden surge of shame washing over him.

“You still doing all that, then?” Sam asked him in a careful and neutral manner.

Bucky felt his left eye twitch. He really did not want to be reminded of the last conversation he had with Sam.

Sam had turned up, in circumstances not dissimilar to this, although they were on speaking terms then. Bucky was nowhere to be found, unreachable. Sam used his drone, Redwing, to find him. Sam caught Bucky in a compromising position with a handsome stranger, under the influence of a dangerous mix of drugs and alcohol.

This had led to a full-blown one-sided rage induced argument in which Bucky had lost his head completely, shouting loudly and passionately about all the weird, fucked up and crazy shit he got up to, and all the ways in which he frequently sought to punish himself, decrying all those useless idiots who could have ever possibly thought that releasing him had been a good idea. Throughout, Sam remained quiet and patient, waiting for him to calm down.

Sam, naturally, informed Dr Raynor, which meant that everyone in the government was also told. As a result, Bucky had to spend the week that followed accompanied by Christina’s babysitters while the powers that be determined whether this new information affected his risk assessment. It hadn’t. The level of leniency he received was astonishing. But he knew why. Because of the person he used to be, because once upon a time he had been a war hero, and because he’d been Steve’s brother and Steve had fought tooth and nail for Bucky’s freedom before he had died.

He wasn’t actually angry at Sam for telling Dr Raynor; he knew anyone would have done the same when dealing with Bucky’s manic craziness. However, he felt shame that Sam was the one who had discovered it all.

Soon after, Bucky cut off all contact with Sam. Sam reached out to Bucky on Christmas Day, but Bucky spent the day reading through the names in his notebooks and unsuccessfully trying to get intoxicated. His Christmas consisted only of drugs, alcohol, a knife, and his journals filled with memories.

Bucky chose not to answer Sam’s question. The proof was all around them. Instead, Bucky moved to open the blind, flooding the room with light, and turned off the television.

“Can you leave?” he asked Sam.

“Why don’t you sort yourself out a bit,” Sam suggested, “and I’ll put the kettle on.”

Bucky sighed and nodded, accepting defeat.

“Christina’s minions usually store coffee and tea somewhere,” he gestured toward a cupboard. “God knows if there’s any milk. If you find it, you can have it.”

He cleaned himself up in the bathroom and came back to find Sam still searching the kitchen in vain.

As Bucky came back, Sam glanced upwards.

“Do you just live on beer and cigarettes?” Sam asked.

Sam’s question triggered a memory in Bucky’s mind, and he frowned as he chased it. Steve had asked the same question before, in another lifetime, upon seeing Bucky’s new apartment for the first time, back in the time ‘before’. He brushed the memory aside as a pang of sorrow washed over him, as it always did as he thought about Steve. The main reason he didn’t want Sam here was because Sam reminded him too much of Steve.

Bucky responded “yes” to Sam’s question. Sam arched an eyebrow.

“I don’t need to eat much,” Bucky said in a defensive tone. “I can go months if I have to.”

That was the simplest way to put it, the way which caused him the least amount of shame. Decades of abnormal eating led to Bucky having a complex relationship with food. Hydra didn’t bother with feeding him properly, only providing the calories and nutrients to keep him running like a car fuelled with petrol. Telling Sam he didn’t need to eat was easier than telling him he couldn’t. Food made him sick half the time, and the other half it made him anxious enough to force himself to be sick. The outcome remained the same. When he needed calories, he consumed liquid meals. Or food replacement. It had always been that way for decades.

“You’ve told me that before,” Sam said. “But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It can’t be healthy or good for you. Steve used to eat loads. Like ten thousand calories a day.”

 “Yeah, well, I’m not Steve,” Bucky said sullenly.

“That’s not what I said,” Sam said placidly. 

Silence hung in the room between them. Bucky wished Sam would hurry up and leave, as he felt tense and uncomfortable. The tension was so thick, you could slice it with a knife. Notwithstanding Bucky’s own body language, which he was certain radiated the message you’re not welcome here.

Bucky considered it unfortunate how things had played out. He’d liked Sam back in Wakanda. Over three months, Sam visited Bucky several times since Steve was too busy. Steve had a lot going on - he was juggling being a wanted criminal, running from the law, taking care of the remaining Avengers, and still trying to be a superhero. Steve had visited a couple of times, but not as often as he would have wanted. They had a few brief conversations where Steve answered questions and shared memories. But an alien invasion abruptly ended it all, zapping Bucky out of existence and back, and it had all culminated in Steve’s death.

And because Steve was no longer alive, Bucky knew Sam had a sense of obligation towards him. Sam knew that Steve and Bucky had practically been brothers, and he felt responsible for looking out for him. Being forced into interactions with someone who felt obligated to ‘take care’ of him rattled Bucky.

Bucky lit a cigarette. Perhaps smoking would make him feel less tense. Sam sighed as he did so.  

“I see you’re still smoking,” Sam said pointedly.

“That’s observant of you,” Bucky said and then inhaled deeply, flooding his lungs with cigarette smoke.

“You know those things kill people, don’t you?” Sam asked him. Bucky grimaced. Of course he knew. Everyone told him, so how could he not know? Everyone, including the Wakandans, Steve, people at the Raft, Dr Raynor, and Sam, had thoughts on smoking. It drove him potty. Even in 1943, Howard Stark cautioned him about the potential risks of smoking.

Steve’s voice played in his mind, from decades ago:


I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much. Howard says it’s bad for your health.

And Howard’s own words…

No. He shook his head, trying to shake away the thoughts. Right now, he had no intention of thinking about Howard. He had barely been awake for half an hour and already experienced far too much emotional pain.

“I’ll risk it,” Bucky stated, exhaling smoke from his lungs. Sam waved his hand to disperse the smoke.

“You ever hear about second hand smoke Bucky?” Sam asked, as he coughed and grimaced.

“No,” Bucky sarcastically replied, “and I can’t wait for you to tell me all about it.”

Despite appearing indifferent, he nonetheless threw his unfinished cigarette into the sink. He knew Sam hated his smoking, and he wasn’t so callous to just stand here and blow smoke into Sam’s face. Besides, smoking might not be dangerous for Bucky and as annoying as Sam was being right now, Bucky didn’t want to damage his health. Maybe there was truth to all the warnings about smoking.

“Are you ready to leave?” Sam asked him.

“What for?”

“We’re going out,” Sam said. “Getting breakfast.”

“I told you…”

“I know you don’t need anything,” Sam interrupted. “But I do. I came here straight from the airport. I’m starving. And you clearly are not equipped to entertain guests.” He gestured towards Bucky’s empty cupboards.

“Can’t even make a cup of tea,” Sam said. “I know you can afford things, Bucky. You remember I was there when Ross told you what you’d be getting?”

Oh yes, Bucky thought. A substantial lump sum of money, as well as regular recurring payments. All undeserved. Military pension and overdue compensation, POW reparations and damages for his false imprisonment in the Raft, and in Berlin in 2016.

He gave a shrug. “Like I said, Christina’s babysitters usually bring things, and they’ve not been here for a while.”

He took pride in the fact that Christina had been sending people to check on him less and less as time passed. ‘High alert’ she called it, which was fancy speak for ‘suicide watch’. He found this almost hilariously ironic as one of the unexpected consequences of Hydra’s manipulation of his mind was that he couldn’t even end his own life. And she knew this. Everyone knew it, and yet they all insisted on playing out this ridiculous farce. He had to deal with unexpected visits from people searching for weapons and regular drug testing, ever since Sam disclosed Bucky’s drug usage to Christina. Another farce because all drugs were out of his system in a matter of hours, so if he timed it right, they’d never show up when he was tested. Such a pointless waste of time and resources.

Apparently, this was what freedom looked like. An endless list of useless and meaningless tasks. Ticking the boxes, he supposed.

“So I want to go to a diner and get some breakfast,” Sam continued. “And then we’re going to an auto dealership.”

“Whatever for?” Bucky asked helplessly.

“You owe me a new car, remember?” Sam said, his grin stretching from ear to ear.

Bucky was caught off guard, his mouth ajar in shock as his brain processed the words. Unable to contain himself, he released a small laugh.

In a split second, the tension in the room vanished.

Sam and his damn car. Every conversation since 2018, Sam never failed to bring up the time Bucky wrecked his car. It had become an ongoing joke, and Bucky had made a promise to replace Sam’s car when he could. While Bucky may not have entirely recovered himself yet, he knew this much at least: he never broke a promise.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, his voice laced with humour, “all-right.” And he couldn’t stop himself from grinning back as he made eye contact with Sam, who was looking extremely pleased with himself.

Instantly, all the weight, tension, and anxiety he carried vanished.

Sam responded to his smile with a mischievous grin and playful eyes.

Bucky was amazed by Sam’s knack for somehow always managing to say the right thing. In just one sentence, all the awkwardness, resentment, and anger dissipated, and Sam’s smile confirmed it.

“It is really good to see you, Buck,” Sam told him. And he looked like he meant it too, which Bucky really couldn’t understand. The idea that Sam could actually be happy to see him was hard for him to accept, leaving him feeling emotional and speechless.

Bucky nodded, his throat tightening as he swallowed. It took him a moment, but he found his voice once more.

“It’s good to see you too,” he said. And he realised that he also meant it. Genuinely.

Notes:

The quote I have chosen for Act One is from one of my favourite authors. He is a Japanese author more commonly recognised for his novel '1Q84' which is a very good read. But my favourite novel of his is 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle'. I picked this quote because it really seemed to fit Bucky and the theme for Act One of this story. Also, the book the quote is from is called 'Sputnik Sweetheart' - how fitting is that!?

Chapter 2: Obligation

Bucky sat opposite Sam in the diner, watching as he gave his order to waitress and feeling slightly dumbfounded by the amount of food Sam was ordering.

“Anything you want, Buck?” Sam asked him once the waitress had repeated back Sam’s order to him.

Bucky shook his head. She asked him if he wanted anything to drink.

“You got any alcohol?” he asked.

“It’s 10.30 in the morning,” she responded, sounding disapproving. Bucky blinked up at her, genuinely confused.

“Did I ask for the time?” he asked her, a little flippantly.

She snatched the menu from his hands. “You want coffee?” she said. It didn’t really sound like a question.

“Sure,” he replied hesitantly, looking over at Sam who looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“I think you pissed her off,” Sam remarked as the waitress left to sort out their orders. Bucky just shrugged.

“I’ll leave her a large tip,” he said.

“She’s right though,” Sam said. “Far too early for alcohol isn’t it?”

“It would be if it actually did anything,” Bucky answered, somewhat resentfully. He’d yet to find a source of alcohol that actually had any impact. Although when it was combined with strong hallucinogenic substances he’d found it to have some effect. He’d not actually figured out any combination yet to make him lose himself entirely but he’d achieved feeling almost tipsy a couple of times. 

“Yes, Steve had the same problem,” Sam said sagely, “but he didn’t try to fight it as much as you.”

Bucky tensed at the mention of Steve, thrown so casually into the conversation – it threw him off. Sam didn’t seem to notice, he was busy fiddling with his phone. He leaned over the table to show Bucky photos of his sister and nephews that he’d taken over the Christmas holiday.

“You look like you’re all having fun,” Bucky remarked as Sam cycled through the photographs. Two little boys in reindeer sweaters, Sam with a Santa hat, Sam’s sister hanging decorations on the tree. Sam showed him a video of his nephews prancing around to ‘Rudolph’. Sounds of giggles and hilarity poured out of the phone. Bucky felt a slight pang as he thought of how he’d spent his own Christmas this year, alone, lost in his memories, while trying (and failing) to get completely hammered.

“It was great,” Sam said, as his finger swiped through photo after photo. “I can’t believe how big they’ve got. Five years we were gone. At their ages that’s such a huge chunk of their lives; they barely remember me. It’s sad, how much I missed.”

Bucky felt he could relate to that. He nodded.

“Were you thinking of buying more furniture?” Sam asked, suddenly changing topic. “I’ll send you some links,” he began tapping at his phone again. Bucky felt his own phone buzz in his pocket.  He ignored it.

“I don’t need anything,” he told Sam.

“Are you joking?” Sam asked.

The waitress brought over Sam’s food, and poured Bucky some coffee.

“You have nothing in your apartment, Buck,” Sam said. “It’s been three months since you moved in. I didn’t even see the bedroom – do you even have a bed?”

Bucky shrugged. He didn’t have a bed, but Sam didn’t need to know that. What use did he have for a bed? He’d never sleep on it.

“I’ve sent you some links,” Sam said, gesturing to his phone. “Do you want me to show you how to buy things?”

“I know how to use my damn phone, Sam,” Bucky snapped, slightly rankled at Sam’s assumption of how incompetent he was.

Sam raised his hands, as if in surrender. “Just offering,” he said. “Steve needed help sometimes with things like that; he found such things tricky to wrap his head around.”

And there it was again. Another casual mention of Steve, thrown into the conversation so easily.

Bucky watched as Sam dug into the absolute mountain of food that had been placed in front of him. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, and more. It made him feel nauseous just watching it. He sipped at his coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the waitress still staring daggers at him.

At what point did Sam start calling him Buck? Bucky wondered. That name was being thrown out as casually as Steve’s was. Steve had been the only person to have ever called him that, coming up with it when they were children, so desperate he’d been to have a nickname for Bucky only he would use. Bucky couldn’t recall at what point Sam had started using it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Bucky tore his gaze away from Sam and stared out of the window. It was actually harder than he’d thought it would be, watching Sam eat, because he realised how starving he actually was. He’d gone so long never eating properly that he’d never felt hunger – it was not something his body could recognise. But ever since Christina had started him on keeping a food diary and trying out different foods to see what he could or couldn’t keep down it had thrown everything into disarray, he'd learned what it felt like to be starving. And watching Sam eat was making it worse.

Sam was nattering away, something to do with some old friends of his and Steve’s, and Bucky tuned him out and remained staring out of the window. His hand went up to his dogtags, hanging round his neck, and he idly fiddled with them. He never took them off. After he had re-acquired them after getting his mind back in 2014 they had helped him keep track of who he was. He no longer needed them to remind him of who he was, but they were still special. They were the only thing he owned from the time before it all went wrong. They were the last remnants of the ‘real’ James Bucky Barnes.

“I just wanted to know what you felt about that, Buck?” Sam asked him, drawing his attention back over.

Bucky stared at him, completely lost. He had no idea what Sam was referring to as he’d long since stopped listening to his mindless chatter.

Sam sighed.

“I just wanted to let you know that it’s okay,” Sam said, waving his fork at Bucky.

This explanation did nothing but add to Bucky’s confusion.

“What’s okay?” he asked Sam.

“That you like men,” Sam said.

Bucky blinked in astonishment. Was that what Sam had been talking about? About the time two months ago when Sam had found him with that guy whose name Bucky never bothered finding out. This is the conversation they were having? Right here and now?

“I know it’s okay,” Bucky said, frowning slightly. He couldn’t exactly miss it. The modern world screamed it out at him – everyone could like anyone they wanted and it wasn’t a problem. It was a source of hilarious and yet strangely depressing irony given how hard he used to have to work to hide it. Bucky had spent his young adult life hiding himself and being ashamed of who he was. He’d lost one of his closest friends, his comrade Timothy Dugan, when the other man had discovered him in circumstances not dissimilar to those in which Sam had found him just before Christmas.

For all his interest in thinking about the future back when he was young he never would have envisioned being able to casually admit to liking men across a table to a friend in a public place while eating breakfast. To be able to be so open about who you are, and no longer have to hide it or feel ashamed about it. The fear and anxiety he’d felt most of his pre-Hydra life of being discovered was no more. One of the perks of the 21^st Century, he supposed.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Sam said. “I mean I wanted you to know that I’m okay with it.”

Bucky felt like this conversation was getting away from him, he had no idea what Sam was trying to achieve.

“Why would I think you would have a problem with it?” Bucky said, tapping his fingers against his mug. This conversation was making him feel uncomfortable.

It was now Sam’s turn to look confused.

“I thought that was why you blanked me,” Sam explained, “because I found out. I thought that perhaps you felt I thought badly of you and so you stopped speaking to me.”

“Oh,” Bucky said, finally catching up. He drained the last of his coffee and looked around for the waitress, but suddenly she was nowhere to be seen. After spending all this time glaring daggers at him she suddenly vanished when he actually wanted something. He really had pissed her off.

“I didn’t blank you, as you put it,” he told Sam, “because of that. Well,” he amended, “not entirely. I stopped talking to you because you wouldn’t shut up about Steve and it drove me crazy.”

Sam got a look of dawning comprehension of his face.

Bucky continued on. “All those questions you were asking me, all the time. Was Steve like this when you knew him?” he quoted. “Did he used to do this then as well? Do you want to come to his memorial with me? What was he like when he was younger?” Bucky pulled a face. “I hated it.”

“I see,” Sam said, putting down his fork. He took a moment to think.

“Well, that’s how I mourn,” Sam said steadily. “I want to talk to about him. It gives me closure.”

“Well, I don’t,” Bucky snapped. “And what the fuck is closure anyway? What an utter farce. Frankly, I think it’s all bizarre, and not to mention morbid. Anyway…”

“No,” Sam said suddenly. He didn’t shout, but his voice was firm, and the gravitas of it made Bucky fall silent. Sam’s face was like stone.

“You don’t want to talk about Steve,” Sam said, his tone even but still firm, “that’s fine. We don’t need to. I can get that elsewhere. But I won’t put up with you belittling the way that I need to manage my grief, because you have outdated attitudes about male emotions or some such shit.”

Bucky opened his mouth to provide an angry retort, but words escaped him as he realised that Sam was actually right. The men of his time never talked about their feelings or emotions, it was considered unmanly. His own father never even hugged him. He closed his mouth and he felt immediately remorseful.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said, and resumed his staring out of the window. An awkward silence fell between the two of them, and that tense atmosphere that had been present earlier in his apartment re-emerged. Bucky silently cursed himself for screwing this up. Maybe Christina was right, he thought bitterly, and he did need to work harder on interacting with others. He couldn’t even make an order at a diner without pissing off the waitress. He wracked his brain for something they could talk about that would be non-controversial. He wanted to ask Sam about the shield, and if he had plans for it, if he’d been training with it, learning how to use it with the wings. But the last time he’d mentioned the shield he’d been swiftly silenced so he knew that that topic wasn’t going to save this conversation.

Sam cleared his throat and Bucky’s eyes snapped back to him, mentally pleading, hoping that Sam would be able to rescue this conversation, because god knows Bucky was completely incompetent, and socially inept. But Sam, he could talk about anything, he was always able to say the right thing.

And then a wry little smile appeared on Sam’s face.

“So…” Sam said slyly. “Is it just men, or is it women as well?”

Bucky stared at him in disbelief. And then he let out a laugh as relief flooded through him. Just as it had earlier the tension lifted as quickly as it had come.

“Oh my God,” Bucky said, shaking his head in exasperation. “We do not know each other well enough to be having this conversation.”

“I’m just trying to square that in my mind with what I know about you,” Sam said, casually drinking his orange juice.

“What do you know about me?” Bucky asked him. “Really?”

Sam shrugged.

“Well, not that,” he said. “The way Steve always spoke about you… breaking girl’s hearts, Casanova, a real ladies’ man. I guess there’s some things he left out.”

Bucky felt his mood plummet again and he sagged in his seat.

“Easy to leave out what you don’t know,” he muttered. He avoided Sam’s eyes as he really didn’t want Sam to press this hurt further. This rue, regret and remorse: a massive wound that lay close to the surface, raw and open.

And that was a whole other tragedy. That when Steve was there, Bucky hadn’t remembered; and now Bucky remembered, Steve was no longer here.

They’d had one conversation that touched on this, in Wakanda.

 I guess there were some things I didn’t know, Steve had said. All the lies and secrets Bucky had had to keep from Steve before and during the war; and Steve had died not knowing any of them.

Sam talked about wanting closure. There’s no such thing as closure. What a joke.

He dug in his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. As he pushed a cigarette in between his lips the waitress suddenly materialised, having decided at this moment to stop ignoring him.

“You can’t smoke in here,” she said, sounding horrified.

Bucky let the cigarette drop from his lips into his lap.

“Of course not,” he said as the waitress began loudly clearing up Sam’s plates. “What was I thinking?” He rolled his eyes.

Sam gave him a small smile. “You’d better go outside,” he instructed coolly.

“Sometimes I find the 21^st century so bizarre,” Bucky told Sam as he rose heavily to his feet. “When did people become so precious?”

“Guess you’ll have to take up vaping,” Sam responded.

“Over my dead body,” Bucky smiled.

“Hasn’t that already happened?” Sam asked him. “I’ve died once, and you’ve died twice by my count.”

Bucky let out a laugh. Oh God, he thought, this was why he liked Sam. He’d missed this. The jokes, the teasing, the inappropriate humour. Sam would never have made a joke like that to Steve, but he knew Bucky well enough to know exactly what to say to make him laugh.

Back in Wakanda, after being woken up from cyro-freeze so that Shuri could test her theories on how to remove the Hydra conditioning, it had been Sam who had been there. Steve couldn’t – he was too busy being on the run and saving the world, so he had sent Sam. The first thing he had heard Sam say was an irreverent joke about Bucky looking like death warmed up. Bucky remembered just staring at Sam in disbelief, but then he’d smiled. And by God if that hadn’t been the first time he’d smiled since 1945, probably.

And when he’d asked Sam what the Hell he was doing here Sam had said, “You owe me a car. I’m not letting you out of my sight until you deliver.”

And Bucky had not only smiled, he’d laughed as well.

It might seem callous and cold to others, but Sam Wilson had seen something about Bucky which others like Steve missed. That what Bucky needed wasn’t false platitudes, or people tiptoeing around him on eggshells, but to be treated like a normal person, to be made fun of.

Why couldn’t it have been this easy with Steve?  Steve had spent most of their limited time together gazing at Bucky with big dopey sad eyes, which just made Bucky feel awful. Not to mention Steve’s constant efforts to try to absolve him, and make him feel less guilty, and how he kept pouring onto Bucky his own misguided feelings of guilt and regret. Bucky didn’t need that, he didn’t know how to manage it and he didn’t respond well to it. But what he did respond well to was Sam’s casual disregard and deliberate lack of tact. He found it so uplifting. Out of everyone in the world he knew Sam would never bullshit him, or lie to him just to make him feel better.

Bucky pointed his forefinger at Sam.

“You’re not half as funny as you think you are,” he said, and turned on his heel to leave the diner. Sam shouted after him:

“I’m ten times funnier than I think I am.”

And Bucky grinned.

Bucky genuinely had no memory of destroying Sam’s car. His 2014 memories were really hazy – no more than fragments. Blowing up a police car, kicking a man into a jet engine…

Your work has been a gift to mankind

Throwing Steve off a helicarrier, tearing off Sam’s wings…

Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.

You’re my brother

And there was pain… always pain…

Wipe him and start over.

And he’d submitted to them, as he always did, because he was always so compliant.

But wrecking Sam’s car was not one of these fragments, he was just taking Sam’s word for it that he’d done any such thing in the first place. But he was sure Sam was probably telling the truth, otherwise it was the oddest long standing running inside joke he could imagine.

He’d have been happy buying Sam an expensive, flashy, modern car, with all the fun modern technological innovations, like a rear view camera for parking, or a car that could park itself. That sort of thing actually made Bucky quite excited, as he remembered how much he used to love technology. But Sam had shot that down quickly, saying he only wanted a car of equal value to the one that Bucky had destroyed.

“I don’t know if we can get a car that cheap,” Bucky said lightly, as they left the diner together.

“What do you know about the value of my car?” Sam asked, feigning offense. “You said you don’t remember wrecking it.”

“I don’t,” Bucky said. “I’m just assuming your car was cheap junk because of all the time you spend moaning about the state of your finances. Why do you have all these money problems anyway?” he asked. “Just get a book deal or something. You’d make a fortune. I told Steve once…”

He trailed off.

“Told Steve what?” Sam asked, sounding eager. Bucky threw so few scraps about Steve towards Sam and Sam ate every single one up greedily. But Bucky couldn’t go on.

I am going to get a book written about you one day. I’ll call it ‘The True Story of Captain America: the Little Guy from Brooklyn’. And I’ll make a fortune

Sometimes these memories could really hurt.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky muttered.

Later, after Sam had chosen his cheap and cheerful and very crappy new car, they parted ways.

“Do you think you’ll stop ignoring me now?” Sam asked him.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said truthfully.

“Well, at least you’re honest about it,” Sam said, sounding peeved.

Bucky sighed. He did feel conflicted. On one hand he liked Sam, and he liked being around him. He liked Sam’s insensitive jokes, and he liked hearing Sam talking about his family. It felt normal. It almost made him feel normal. But on the other hand Sam reminded him of Steve, and all those old wounds kept getting opened up. And Sam wasn’t really his friend anyway, was he? He’d been Steve’s friend.

“You can ring Dr Raynor,” Bucky said. “I know you will anyway, to tell her the state you found me in. Like last time.”

“Bucky,” Sam said, sounding tired.

“No, it’s okay. Really,” Bucky said quickly. “I don’t mind. I’d rather you told her, because then she’ll know and I won’t have to bring it up. Tell her everything; tell her I’m still doing everything I shouldn’t. It’s for the best.”

“When do you see her next?” Sam asked.

“Monday,” Bucky replied. Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am like clockwork. Therapy was supposed to last an hour, but it often went on for longer than that. It was exhausting and it felt like a waste of time, but it was what he had to do. It was a condition of his pardon after all.

And Sam did ring her, because shortly after he sat down opposite Christina at 10am on Monday morning, her first question was about Sam.

“You know what Sam told me?” she asked him. No beating around the bush then. Straight and to the point, as usual.

“He just turned up on Saturday morning,” he muttered, picking at the arm of the sofa. “Uninvited.”

“You sound annoyed about that,” she observed.

He shrugged.

“We do frequent drug testing,” she reminded him. “Why aren’t they showing up?”

Bucky sighed. Might as well tell her.

“24 hours,” Bucky said. “That’s how long they stay in my system. Roughly. Anything I do on Friday and Saturday doesn’t show up on Monday.”

“So I’ll need to send someone over on a Saturday or Sunday then to test you,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Bucky sighed.

“It’s not punishment, James,” she said.

“It feels like it is, Christina,” he said, his frustration evident in his voice. “I hate it when you send people round to check on me. To babysit me.”

It had been some time since she’d last sent babysitters round; it was a blow to be returning back to that situation. He’d thought he’d been making progress.

“You’re not in trouble James,” Dr Raynor tried to reassure him. “I anticipated this behaviour. None of what Sam Wilson just told me is a surprise to me. We’ve talked about your self-harming before. You’ve been self-harming regularly ever since you came out of prison.  All of this is an expected escalation. If you had allowed me to share with you the assessment completed of you while you were in prison you would know that allowances were made for this. It was anticipated that over the few months after your release that we would see an escalation in self-destructive behaviours. It’s typical for those in your situation.”

Typical Bucky thought, as in something that happens to other people. This came as a surprise to him, the thought that anything about his situation might be regarded as typical. Strangely enough the thought actually gave him a sense of hope.

The surprise must have shown on his face as Dr Raynor then elaborated, “It’s common for people going through this kind of recovery. Self-destructive actions, impulsive and maladaptive behaviours, intrusive thoughts - it was anticipated that they would escalate quite sharply once you started to settle back into ‘normal’ life, as it were.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that. He looked out of the window instead.

“So this isn’t about punishing you,” Dr Raynor persisted, “this is about understanding you, understanding the methods you utilise to cope with your stress and trauma, and then working through some strategies to reduce the harmful behaviours and finding more healthy ways of coping. So that’s what we will be starting to explore from now on. But this requires you to be open. No more secrets. I need to give constant reassurances to the President that you are not putting others at risk of harm and I can’t do that if you keep things like this from me.”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Bucky said quickly, “I promise.”

“The president is invested in your recovery James,” Dr Raynor said. “You know this. You have my entire focus. No-one wants this to end badly. So you need to be open and honest. Tell me about what you are doing. All of it.”

Bucky knew there was no way around this. This was his life now. He had no privacy under Hydra and he had no privacy now. He had to go along with it; he had to play the game. Then he could get out the other side. It would end one day.

And so he told her. He told her about seeking out men who would hurt him, that the self-harming hadn’t been enough. He told her about his encounters in the bathrooms of dodgy clubs, or in alleyways. He would give them money to keep them quiet. He had a metal arm for god’s sake, they would figure out who he was. He told her about the drinking, and the drugs, and the endless quest to find something which might work to blank out the memories, and stop the nightmares.

The entire time he stared at the floor, not making eye contact. This was so painful. He hated it. He hated knowing that after he left here Dr Raynor would type all this up and send it off in a report to be read by… someone. Possibly the President. And probably a whole host of other people as well. It was humiliating. But it had to be done. She said it wasn’t a punishment, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like anything else.

He really wished he still had his long hair. He used to like hiding behind it, for all that it had pissed some people off, like Brock Rumlow. It gave him some sense of control. He would love to hide behind his hair right now. But he had got it cut off, because the hair made him recognisable as the Winter Soldier. All the photos and images of the Winter Soldier had the long hair. With the short hair and his arm covered he could be incognito. Regardless of that, he was trying to be Bucky Barnes, right? And Bucky Barnes didn’t have long hair. Bucky Barnes had cared about his hair, about his appearance, and that’s who he was trying to recreate.

Then Dr Raynor talked to him about what their future sessions would look like, identifying the triggers for his self-harming behaviour and how to manage them.

Bucky was surprised that she hadn’t just told him that he needed to stop. She said it was unrealistic to expect him to just suddenly stop these behaviours. “That’s not how it works,” she said, “and it would just set you up to fail, and make you feel worse about yourself. Harm reduction James, we’ve talked about that before. Remember? Managing things so that they are as safe as they can be, while we work on your recovery.”

He had no recollection of any such conversation, but then he often tuned her out when she was nattering away about such things. He nodded, but from the dubious expression on her face he felt that she knew very well how little he paid attention to her.

And then she asked about Sam. About how Bucky had felt having Sam turn up on Saturday. Bucky spent a happy few minutes moaning about him.

“I think I alarmed him a bit,” Bucky then said, “but he hid it well.”

“Was it alarm?” she asked. “Or was it care?”

“Why would he care?” Bucky responded flatly.

“It seems to me like it was very much an act of friendship,” she said. “It sounds like he cares about you.”

“No he doesn’t,” Bucky said, his tone matter of fact. “Sam was Steve’s friend. He just feels obligated  to me because Steve’s dead, and Steve was my brother. He knows Steve would want him to look out for me. I don’t need that. That’s not friendship.”

“Is that all you think it is?” she asked him. “Obligation?”

Bucky nodded.

“That’s all it is,” he said.

 

Chapter 3: Nostalgia

Notes:

This chapter features a lot of my own personal headcanons (some of which I have absorbed from the fandom in general) regarding Hydra's control of Bucky, and some of his earlier experiences. I've also taken some things from MCU companion works regarding the removal of the trigger words and such - such as the 'Infinity War Prelude' comic and 'The Wakanda files'

Warnings for the chapter: self-harming is referenced in this chapter, there is some detail but nothing too graphic

A week later on Monday morning Bucky sat opposite Dr Raynor, wondering if he would be able to get through his therapy session today without sharing what had happened over the weekend. He doubted it somehow. Dr Raynor had a way of asking questions which just drew the truth out of him. An ongoing side effect of being the Winter Soldier: a compulsion to answer questions and an inability to lie when he did so. Something the Wakandans, in their infinite wisdom, had neglected to fix. Shuri had been concerned about the impact on his brain if she’d meddled too much, only wanting to take away that which made him dangerous – the trigger words. She’d been worried about the impact on his personality if she altered his brain too much. His other issues, such as the inability to kill himself and the inability to lie, were left for him to endure, and his memories were left for him to regain himself over time.

Bucky had gone a little crazy over the weekend, done some things he knew he shouldn’t have done, and he really felt he could do without talking about it today. He felt enough shame as it was, without having the condemnation of another person. And it was so frustrating - he tried so hard to be in control of himself, but sometimes it really felt like his brain was conspiring against him, and trying to make everything as difficult as possible.   

True to her word Dr Raynor had sent one of her minions round on Saturday morning to drug test him. The test had been negative. It had also been negative when she tested him upon his arrival his morning. She had expressed surprise over this; it had been the first weekend for several weeks that Bucky had not engaged in any substance use.

“I told you,” Bucky said, irritated that she hadn’t believed him when he’d told her this before his test. “I didn’t do drugs over the weekend, I didn’t meet with anyone. I didn’t do anything like that. I didn’t even go anywhere.” He felt the all too familiar ache emerge from behind his eyes as he spoke – his brain creating his own punishment for daring to tell a lie. He remained impassive, ignoring the pain, and continued on.

“Well,” he said, “on Friday evening I went to several stores and bought as much alcohol as they were willing to sell me. And then it was all gone by Sunday evening.”

The pain dissipated as quickly as it had come. He’d amended the lie with a truth, perhaps not the full truth but it had worked as he had anticipated. He enjoyed experimenting with half-truths, he liked to see how much he could get away with.  A lie caused pain, the bigger the lie the stronger the pain, but there were always loopholes.

“So what did you do over the weekend?” Dr Raynor asked him.

“Like I said, I bought a shit tonne of alcohol which had all gone by Sunday and I smoked probably about a hundred cigarettes,” Bucky said easily.

He paused. “Probably more than a hundred,” he admitted. For some reason smoking did make him feel better, it relaxed him, made him feel less stressed. It shouldn’t have any effect on him at all – like alcohol, like drugs, but somehow it did. Shuri, back in Wakanda, said it was psychological, that it was the process of engaging in a familiar and comforting act which calmed him, rather than the cigarettes themselves.

“And that was enough for you?” Dr Raynor asked, clearly unconvinced. Bucky sighed internally and mentally cursed how easily he was to read.

“There’s more to this,” Dr Raynor continued. “I can tell when you’re being evasive. I don’t believe that after several months of increasingly escalating acts of self-destructive behaviours that you suddenly managed to stop. You agreed last week to be open and honest with me.”

Bucky sighed out loud this time. He thought back over the last 24 hours: sitting on the floor next to the television, with his beers and cigarettes, a bloody arm and torso as he attacked himself with a recently acquired dagger with serrated edges. It had hurt. And it was what he had needed. Not to mention how he had spent his Saturday…

She was still waiting, and he knew there was no point trying to continue to evade this conversation. She was clearly suspicious, and she would continue to press and wouldn’t let him leave until he capitulated.

“On Sunday I uh, hurt myself. With a knife,” Bucky said. He winced as the pain shot through his head. “A dagger,” he corrected himself, and the pain dissipated.

“Where?” she asked him.

He avoided eye contact with her. “All over,” he muttered. He looked down at his right arm, covered currently by his coat. He still had his gloves on. Dr Raynor always requested that he make himself comfortable when he came in, but he always sat there with his coat and gloves on. He imagined his arm bare and covered in cuts; how it had looked the day before. It didn’t look like that anymore, he healed too quickly.

“It’s all gone now of course,” he mumbled, feeling bitter. “It never lasts.”

She nodded. “Many people find seeing the scars very cathartic,” she said, “and it can be enough to prevent them from making new ones,” she said. “With you they heal very quickly, so the urge to create new ones is very strong.”

Bucky stared down at his right arm.

“No matter what I do it all goes away so quickly,” he told her, and he felt sad about this, “like it never happened.”

“And that was it?” Dr Raynor asked.

Bucky nodded.

She shook her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t buy it. Not knowing your usual methods of coping. What was different? You didn’t have the urge, or you had a desire not to get caught out, given that you knew I was drug testing you on the weekends now?”

“Probably that,” Bucky admitted.

“You used a dagger? Where’d you get something like that?”

“Oh God,” Bucky moaned. She was pushing him, and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from just spewing everything out. He hated this, he hated this so much. Hated that she knew how to take advantage of the shit Hydra put in his head to compel him to speak.

He decided to concede defeat. He looked over at her. She always looked so neutral and passive, expressionless. It was so hard to tell what she was really thinking. He hated that too. He distrusted people he couldn’t read, people who kept their thoughts locked tightly away.

“I think I need to tell you what I did on Saturday,” he said to her.

Bucky had attempted to sleep on Friday night, shooting awake in the early hours of Saturday morning following yet another nightmare. And he couldn’t get the images out of his head.

The Memory Supressing Machine.

The Cyro-Chamber.

He couldn’t get them out of his head, nor could he quell the fear that he felt when he thought of them. Not all of them had been destroyed, there remained locations worldwide that still housed them.

And then a sudden flash of inspiration had shot through him as he remembered one such location, nearby. And he couldn’t fight the desperate compulsion to go there, find the Chair and the Cyro-Chamber, and destroy them.

 “I suddenly remembered this location in Manhattan which Hydra used,” he told Christina. “One I forgot about after I left Hydra in 2014.”

On Saturday, after Dr Raynor’s babysitter had come and gone, Bucky had gone to Manhattan and found the old Hydra base. He’d climbed the roof of the building opposite it and observed the building for several hours, waiting patiently. He saw no-one enter or leave, and concluded that it must have been abandoned after the failure of Project Insight in 2014.

After a few hours he’d made his mind up – he was going to go in. Looking around to make sure no-one could see him he’d launched himself off the roof of the building opposite and snuck to the back entrance of the building which had once been occupied by Hydra.

“I’m not sure you know about the other places I destroyed,” Bucky said, “back in 2014 before I left for Europe. I travelled around a bit going to places where I knew there’d be a Chair and destroying them.”

Christina started scribbling in her notebook. Yes, Bucky thought, that probably would be information she’d want to relay back.

“Can you tell me where some of these places were?” She asked him.

Bucky shrugged. “All over,” he answered. His hand went to his dog tags as he continued, idly fiddling with them. “There was one in Dallas, Texas, where I found these,” he said gesturing at the tags. He had no idea why they were there. It seemed strange that after all those decades that they had ended up in a Hydra base in Texas of all places. If he were to hazard a guess it would be that at some point the Americans wanted proof that he was indeed ‘Bucky Barnes’ and someone kept them as proof of that. The Americans had always been so giddy about who he had been, after all.  

“In Texas?” Christina asked him, her face looking thoughtful.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Bucky said quickly.

“I’m not thinking anything,” she said.

“I know I’ve been there,” Bucky said.  “I don’t remember why or when, but it wasn’t me who shot JFK.” He gestured to her notebook. “You can write that down.”

She put her pen down. “Why does that matter so much?” she asked him.

Bucky gave her a scathing look. “Of course it matters if I killed a President or not,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m sure I did not. I watched the clip. Many times. And it doesn’t feel like it was me. And you know I’m not lying.”

He felt very strongly that if it had been him who’d done it, watching the clip would have brought a memory back. And while there was something very familiar about the President’s name and the year of his death, he was certain it wasn’t him. Or as certain as he could be anyway.

“I’m sure it wasn’t me,” he repeated. “Write that down.” He pointed at her notebook again.

“Why is it so important for you that I write this down?” she asked him.

“Because,” Bucky said slowly, “you’re supposed to pass on significant information. I think whether I killed a President or not qualifies as significant information.”

Christina did pick up her pen then, and scribbled something. Bucky looked dubiously at the notebook.

“What have you written?” he asked her suspiciously.

She handed it over.

Bucky’s eyes roved over the most recent addition.

Shows a fundamental lack of understanding and insight into his own situation

“I understand my situation just fine,” Bucky said, thrusting the notebook back at her, feeling nettled. Christina, like so many others before her, was a source of endless frustration due to her obstinate refusal to allow him to wallow in his own guilt. 

He’d been suspicious of her and her notebook initially. But she always showed it to him when he asked, and she said she didn’t feedback everything to whoever it was who was monitoring his progress.

I work for you, she’d said in their very first session together, and confidentiality is vital for a trusting partnership between us. I provide a summary of every session and I only share specific detail if I think you are putting yourself or other people at risk of harm.

He wasn’t entirely sure he believed her, he couldn’t believe for a moment that there weren’t a load of government agents, CIA or whatever, pouring over every word he said. But she seemed earnest, and she’d let him read some of her summaries and they didn’t seem too objectionable.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re deflecting,” Christina said, “because you don’t want to tell me what you did on Saturday.”

“That was it really,” Bucky said. “I trashed the place looking for the Chair, and then I found it.”

Bucky had turned the Hydra base upside down searching for the Memory Suppressing Machine. And as he was searching he’d found some of his old equipment. Explosives, masks, and the dagger. The dagger was sheathed, and he’d pulled it out and stared at the gleaming blade. And then he had held the knife in his left arm, the metal one, and gently touched the blade to the tip of his right forefinger. It had sliced through like butter. He’d re-sheathed the knife and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers for later use. He’d also grabbed some explosive. Not to take away with him, but to use while he was there.

“Did you take anything else away with you, other than the dagger?” Dr Raynor asked him.

“No,” Bucky said.

“This is important, James,” she said. “Full sentence please, so I know you’re telling the truth.”

Bucky actually smiled slightly; yes this woman knew exactly how to play him. It was almost funny.

“I didn’t take anything else,” he said clearly, “I only took the dagger.”

“And why did you take it?”

“You’re doing that thing again,” Bucky complained. “Where you keep asking follow up questions to get the full story out of me. I hate that.”

“I know,” she said. “Answer the question.”

“It’s designed to cause maximum pain: for torture, not fighting,” he paused, and then quietly added, “I used to use it to hurt others, I know the pain it can cause. I wanted that pain for myself.”

“And that was the only reason you took it?” she asked him.

“What other reason would there be?” Bucky asked, feeling irritated. “Nostalgia?” he said sarcastically.

She looked at him in silence for quite a long time.

“Perhaps,” she said finally.

Bucky stared at her in disbelief. He was not willing to have this conversation again. He remained silent.

Dr Raynor broke that silence after another long pause.

“We’ve talked before about your sense of loss,” she said, choosing her words carefully as she knew what response this would provoke from him.

“I don’t have a sense of loss,” he cut across swiftly.

Bucky imagined that if she were more expressive she might have sighed then, or rolled her eyes, but she was never the sort to so easily show her emotions when she was trying to keep them in.

“You’ve struggled to adapt…” she said.

“I don’t struggle. I adapt fine,” he said just as quickly as the last interruption.

“Yes, in many ways you have adapted unbelievably well,” she conceded. “And you should be very proud of yourself. You’ve not had the same difficulties that you said Steve had in adapting to the modern world. But you have had very significant difficulties with navigating in a world where you have free choices and decisions.”

Bucky scoffed at this but she earnestly pressed on.

“You find making choices immensely hard,” she said. “Remember when you got your hair cut?”

Bucky winced at the memory. He’d got into a panic when he had been asked how he’d wanted his hair to be. It had been a horrifically embarrassing scenario and it made him cringe every time he thought about it. The next time he had tried he’d just picked a haircut at random from the book they showed him. It was exactly the same when he bought alcohol, cigarettes, clothes, anything – he practically closed his eyes and pointed. Making decisions could be paralysing sometimes.

“It’s understandable,” Dr Raynor said, “given that you have not had autonomy over your decision making for a long time. And when you did make decisions they were still directed by others. You have a lot of self-doubt when it comes to your choices. You choose randomly rather than thinking through what you actually want.”

Bucky had never made a good decision throughout his entire life; every decision he had ever made had led him to Siberia. Of course he struggled with decision making nowadays.

“We’ve explored before that sometimes you feel a sense of, yes, nostalgia as you put it, for a time when decisions were made for you.”

Bucky shook his head. “Don’t say that,” he said, he pulled his right leg up onto the sofa and leaned his forehead on his knee. “That can't be true.”

But this conversation hurt because he knew it was true. She wasn’t wrong. Being the Winter Soldier had been easier than managing in the real world. It killed him to think that and he hated her for reminding him of it.

“It’s okay to accept the things that you find difficult,” she said, “and there is comfort in the familiar, and fear in the unknown. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why you went to the Hydra base in the first place.”

“No,” he said firmly shutting down this topic. He drew a hand across his eyes to wipe away the dampness. To his relief she didn’t comment on that. “I just took the knife because I thought it would hurt more. That is all. And I went there because I wanted to destroy that Chair, not because I missed the damn thing.”

After he had taken the knife and the explosive he had returned down some steps to the room which held the Memory Suppressing Machine, or ‘the Chair’ as it was otherwise known. He had destroyed the one in Washington in 2014, after Steve had managed to get inside his head and confuse him.  Now it was time to destroy this one and he took great satisfaction from being able to destroy one of the machines which tore his mind apart. It had felt good, watching it blow up. There may still be others somewhere in the world, but now there was one less.

“What else did you do there?” She asked him.

“I destroyed the Chair,” he said, “I blew it up. And then there was the cryo-chamber. I blew that up too. You know, where they kept me when I wasn’t in use." He still had his foot up on the sofa, but he leaned back against its arm, and stroked the back of the sofa with a finger as he talked.

Back in 2014, after he’d pulled Steve out of the river he’d returned to the Ideal Federal Savings Bank. He’d been confused and enraged and had rampaged through the building like a crazed animal. There had been men there with guns and he had killed them easily, snapping their necks. And then he had gone to the Chair, the Memory Supressing Machine, and he had thrown himself at it, ripping it to shreds with his metal arm. There had been a scientist cowering in the corner, head buried in his hands and shaking. When Bucky had pulled the man up by an arm he had screeched, and screamed  and begged for his life. The man had been in such a state he had peed himself, and snot streamed from his nose as he sobbed. Bucky had dropped the man and let him live. The man had burbled out words of gratitude as Bucky had left the bank, never to return.

“I was thinking about it, the cyro chamber. I dreamed about it on Friday night, what it was like being put in it. And that's why I went there.”

“What was it like?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said, “it’s hard to talk about.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “Instead you could continue to tell me what you did over the weekend.”

He smiled faintly at her. Some choice, he thought. He was startled to see her actually smile back at him. It was almost encouraging and he suddenly realised how much he was freely sharing.

He didn’t actually mind talking to Christina, for all that he complained about her. In their early sessions, when he’d been first released from the Raft, she’d left him in charge of what they talked about. He’d wanted to recover more of his pre-1945 memories and she’d actually assisted in that considerably. Her method of asking questions, which he hated now, had been really helpful in making links in his head, and over those initial few weeks he’d reclaimed so much of what had been lost.

But it was new to talk to her about anything Hydra related; especially about the things that Hydra did to him. And now he’d started, he realised that he didn’t want to stop.

“They were always dragging me in and out of it,” he said. “In Russia I often went years in storage but the Americans used me a lot more.”

“You said you were remembering what it felt like. What did it feel like?” Dr Raynor asked him curiously. “Was it like falling asleep, or perhaps like the blip?”

Bucky remembered that Christina had told him that she’d been blipped too.

“No,” he said uncertainly, feeling exposed and slightly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. “Apart from waking up and finding time had passed it wasn’t like being blipped.”

“Did you dream?” she asked. “You have nightmares when you sleep now, did you have nightmares then, when you were in cyro?”

Bucky chewed his bottom lip anxiously.

“Or was it like being anaesthetised?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said somewhat impatient with this line of questioning and hoping to shut it down, “I’ve never had anaesthesia.”

Dr Raynor looked puzzled. “Didn’t they have anaesthesia in the 40s?” she asked, “I’m sure they did.”

“Well, yes,” Bucky said, “but I’ve never been under, I’ve never had surgery.”

Dr Raynor closed her eyes for a whole five seconds; Bucky counted them, and she appeared to be composing herself. She took a deep breath.

“James, you had your arm removed and replaced,” she then said patiently. “You’ve had surgery.”

Bucky looked down at his left arm, as though just remembering it was there. “Oh yeah,” he said as though some new information had just been revealed to him. And then he froze as he remembered.

“You were unconscious when they removed your arm?” she asked, correctly interpreting his look of horror.

Bucky lowered his head back down onto his leg and rubbed his forehead against his knee.

She repeated the question. Bucky shot his head up.

“Drowning,” he said suddenly making the choice to end that particular line of questioning by instead answering her previous one. “Being frozen feels like drowning; probably because it’s like ice. It’s not like sleep, I don’t dream, and I’m not aware of the passage of time. I mean wasn’t. Past tense.” He felt angry, and he couldn’t tell whether he was angrier with her, or with himself.

“And the surgery?” Dr Raynor persisted.

“You promised,” Bucky said, and to his horror his tone was almost pleading. “You agreed you wouldn’t ask me about things that happened before 1954. You said you wouldn’t.”

This was his boundary that he had set with her, in one of their earliest sessions, and she had agreed to it. He’d told her that she could push anywhere else, and he would answer honestly, but those years between 1945 and 1954 were to remain private.

Dr Raynor nodded, “you’re right,” she said. “So I did. I won’t ask.”

Bucky closed his eyes in relief. “Thank you,” he said. Though he was fully aware that by his refusal to answer the question that that was an answer in itself.

When his arm had been fully removed sometime in the early 1950s (he wasn’t clear on the exact date), they hadn’t bothered making him unconscious. They’d considered it another opportunity to fuck with his head. He’d been given a paralytic. He’d passed out and regained consciousness several times. The process had taken hours, maybe even days. And the pain had been excruciating. Worse even than the pain of lying in the snow with a battered and broken body unable to die.

Dr Raynor talked about how sometimes he felt it had been easier being the Winter Soldier. She wasn’t wrong. It was easier not to have these memories than it was to have them, and sometimes he did long for a time when he didn’t have to remember all that shit that happened to him in his early Siberia years. Was that really nostalgia, as Dr Raynor said? How could that be? How could there be any part of him that longed to return to that Hellish existence? What did that say about him? How could he feel this way when he’d killed so many people?

“So to take us back to where we started,” Dr Raynor said briskly, snapping Bucky out of his thoughts. “In your efforts to avoid partaking in your usual self-destructive behaviours and coping mechanisms you engaged in other, more dangerous and harmful behaviours, such as putting yourself and your pardon as risk by engaging in vigilantism, and arson.”  

Bucky smiled wanly. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he objected.

“What if there had been people there?” she challenged him. “Would you have killed them?”

“No!” Bucky said vehemently. “Of course I wouldn't have killed anyone. But the place was completely abandoned, I checked.”

“Not to mention,” Dr Raynor continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “putting your mental health at risk by going alone to a place associated with your trauma.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.

“How did it feel being in that Hydra base?” she pressed.

Honestly? It hadn’t felt good. Staring at that fucking Chair and remembering how easily and willingly he used to sit in it and allow his mind to be ripped apart because he was too dumb and weak to be able to do anything else. Walking through the corridors and digging through all his old equipment, clothing and other items; it had felt as if he had gone back in time, and was just waiting for someone to turn up and give him orders. And if they had, he'd probably have obeyed them because he was always so good and compliant.

“I wanted to blow the whole place up,” Bucky admitted. “Not just the Chair and Cyro-Chamber. But I kinda figured that wouldn’t be a good move for me, blowing up a random building. So I restrained myself.” 

“So to sum up,” Dr Raynor said, “you had an intrusive thought about the Chair and the Cyro-Chamber, which led you to go to a place which is linked to your traumatic past experiences where you gathered a tool for the express purposes of inflicting harm upon yourself. Is that about right?”

Bucky didn’t reply. He looked down at the floor, embarrassed.

“There is a pattern to your behaviours, James,” she said. “You have an intrusive thought which leads to an obsession, which leads to a compulsive self-destructive behaviour. Going to that Hydra base in itself was an act of self-harm. Do you see that?”

“I do now,” Bucky said sullenly, feeling attacked and even more embarrassed.

“This is useful,” she said, “it tells us what we need to do. We need to do more work on recognising when you are having an intrusive thought. You can’t engage in our strategies to prevent the self-harming behaviours if you can’t recognise when you need them. That’s what we’ll do more work on over the next few weeks.”

“It’s been an hour,” Bucky said suddenly.

Dr Raynor smiled at the predictability of this. Every session without fail Bucky would say when it had been an hour. And every session without fail went on for longer than an hour, as there was no time constraint. But he still did it.

“I know,” she said. Then, “you can’t keep that dagger.”

Bucky nodded. He’d figured that out already.

“I’ll send someone to pick it up today,” she said. 

Bucky imagined that this person would also be instructed to search his entire apartment, and he wouldn't be able to object to this. He'd just have to grin and bear it.

“Can I go?” Bucky asked sitting up and returning his right leg to the floor.

“What haven’t we done yet?” she asked him.

Bucky slumped back. “Self-care questions,” he answered. Every session without fail: the same questions.

She ran through them. How much had he slept? Did he wash? Where did he sleep? Did he go for a walk? Had he eaten anything this weekend?

He hadn’t slept since the few hours on Friday evening. He couldn’t face it, particularly after attending the Hydra base. The nightmares would have been awful. He hadn’t eaten anything for over two weeks. Again, he just couldn’t face the thought of eating.

“I can’t bear it,” he said to her.

She reminded him about his task to attempt small amounts of food and making a note of which foods made him sick. Sometimes food didn’t make him sick but he got so anxious about it, he threw up anyway. There was a difference and she felt it would help to learn which foods had what impact on him. He hated it but he'd promised her he would try.

Dr Raynor had asked him once if his lack of eating may also be linked to his desire to keep himself weak. To avoid reaching his ‘full potential’ as she put it. He felt that there may be some truth to that. He hated what Hydra had turned him into, hated his strength and vitality, if he could starve it all away he would.

Before she let him go she set him homework to write down the locations of any Hydra bases, safe-houses or other locations that he was aware of in the country, so she could share this with those she reported to.

“I’ll have to report what happened this weekend,” she told him. “There will be consequences if you do something like this again, I can guarantee it. You share what locations may still exist and they will be dealt with – properly by the relevant authorities.”

He agreed but after he left - finally! -  he felt uneasy about it. Not through any sense of loyalty to Hydra or a desire to keep things hidden but because many of those locations had useful things. There were fake passports he could use, cash, supplies and also weapons; these things may be needed one day. He considered that he could share some information and keep others secret. If she didn’t ask him explicitly then she would never know.

Despite everything that had been given to him by the American government, despite the money and the pardon and the chance of a new life Bucky still felt his situation was precarious. Some of those abandoned Hydra locations could be his insurance policy.

Bucky didn’t think he was a pessimist, he considered himself to be more of a realist. And he was very aware that what was given could easily be taken away.

 

Chapter 4: Legacy: Part One

Notes:

I want to clarify that when I describe dreams they are just dreams. Ever since 'Dr Strange: Multiverse of Madness' came out I see a lot of discussion on the internet about how all dreams are things happening in other universes. I really don't think that was the intention: I think that perhaps some dreams are, or maybe you need to be a magic user to have those kind of dreams. Regardless, when Bucky has dreams in this story, they are simply that: dreams. There are no multiversal shenanigans in this story: maybe in a sequel... (I have emerging ideas).

I also feel the need to remind you that this story is tagged 'Not Peggy Carter Friendly'. This chapter introduces that.
There are also references made to events in the prequel fic: 'The Journey of Our Life' - again you don't need to read that, I feel that all the context is provided here.

Legacy: Part One

 

 

Bucky awoke to find Steve standing over him.

“It’s time for us to talk, Buck,” Steve said.

Bucky sat up, and realised he was in bed. That didn’t feel right. He looked around and realised that he was in his quarters in the SSR in London. That wasn’t right either.

“What’s going on?” he asked Steve, swinging his legs out of the bed and sitting up. Steve didn’t look right; his face was blurry. Bucky couldn’t seem to focus – either on Steve or on anything in the room. Every time he looked closely at something, it just faded away. If he tried to focus on Steve’s face all he could see was a fuzzy pink blur. Had he been drinking?

I can’t get drunk he thought, and then wondered where on Earth that thought came from. He often got drunk; it was one of his favourite activities.

“You promised you’d answer my questions,” Steve said, sitting down on the bed next to him. “It’s time.”

And Bucky remembered what it was Steve was referring to. Their last conversation before they jumped onto Zola’s train.

When we get back, Steve had said, I will answer your questions and you will answer mine

“I’ve told you what you wanted to know about Peggy and Private Lorraine,” Steve said. “Now it’s your turn to answer my questions.”

Bucky felt confused, he couldn’t remember Steve telling him any such thing. Nor could he remember what he’d wanted to know. And he still couldn’t focus on Steve’s face, and he wanted to so much. When he looked at Steve he felt such a horrible feeling of loss and guilt and he didn’t know why.

“I had a terrible dream,” he told Steve. “I dreamt it all went wrong on the train. That I died, and then you died. And then it all went wrong. And the most horrible things happened to both of us.”

“It hasn’t happened,” Steve said. “We’re here and we’re all-right.”

“There are things I need to tell you,” Bucky said. “I thought I’d lost the opportunity.”

I’ve lied to you. I’ve been lying to you for years

Did he really, finally, blessedly, have the chance to tell Steve the truth? He’d thought the opportunity lost forever. He’d left it too late, because he’d thought there was still time, but he’d fallen from the train. And by the time he and Steve met again he no longer remembered the things that had been left unsaid. And then he did remember, but Steve was no longer there to hear them.

But that hadn’t happened. It had all been a nightmare, and Steve was here and he could fix everything. Everything would be all-right.

It’s not okay, he thought. Something’s not right here.

“Do you remember my friend Jack from the Club?” he asked Steve.

“Yes,” Steve said. “I met him a few times.”

“I was in love with him,” Bucky said. And how easily those words fell out of him now - how he wished he could have said them earlier, so much might have been avoided if only he’d trusted Steve sooner.

“I’ve been too terrified to tell you because I thought I would lose you,” Bucky continued.  “I shouldn’t have thought that. I should have known better. And the worst things have happened because I was too ashamed to tell you who I really am.”

And then Steve’s hand was on his.

“I wish you’d trusted me,” Steve said. “I’d never think badly of you, Buck. You’re always my brother, no matter what.”

I want you to tell me where you’ve been for the last nine months

A sudden desperation surged through his entire being. He felt like he was running out of time and there was still so much left to say. He had to tell Steve about Agent Carter, about Colonel Phillips. That they’d found out about him, and blackmailed him and he’d committed acts of great evil for them. He'd killed so many people for them. And about Zola. Steve had to know what Zola did to him in Krausberg before Carter and Phillips found out. Carter and Phillips were lying to him, keeping secrets. Steve had to know this.

Once again, he needed Steve to save him. Once upon a time, it had been Bucky who’d done the saving.

There was so much more he needed to say. And Steve would fix things. He would undo the horrific mess Bucky had managed to get himself into, and make everything right.

“There’s more…” Bucky began.

 

------

 

 

And then Bucky woke for real. Not with a jolt as usually happened from his nightmares, but slowly, with a dawning comprehension that it wasn’t real.  Along with a powerful sense of loss and sorrow as that realisation creeped upon him and the memory of where and when he really was came back to him.

He felt bereft; all those feelings of guilt, and sorrow and lost opportunity flooded over him, and he couldn’t prevent the silent tears that streamed out of him. This brief glimpse into a life not lived filled him with such despair. Sometimes his dreams could be so cruel that he often thought he would prefer the nightmares.

He got shakily to his feet, abandoning his blanket on the floor, and then flumped himself heavily down on the new couch he had recently bought (from one of the links that Sam had shared him in the diner a couple of weeks ago). And he stared blankly at the television which was playing some kids’ cartoons.

He’d had dreams like that back in Siberia, during those dreadful early years that marked his transition from Bucky Barnes to the Winter Soldier. His dreams had teased him, tortured him worse than Fennhoff, Lukin and Zola had, made him believe he was rescued, made him believe he was elsewhere. Those horrible dreams where he spoke to people like Steve, like his mother, his father, his sisters, and woke believing that it had been real, that he’d somehow been able to communicate across the great divide, and they were on their way to rescue him.

Only to be brought back to reality with a jolt with the horrific realisation that things didn’t work like that. You couldn’t dream yourself somewhere else, Steve was dead, and you can’t send messages to people in dreams. And no-one was coming.

His dreams raised his hopes and dashed them so hard to the ground, hurting him more than any of the torture could.

And to dream now of Steve and the conversation they should have had that last terrible day before the fall was devastating. That for a moment he had believed, fully and truly, that nothing terrible had happened on the train, that they’d returned to London after getting Zola, and he was finally able to tell Steve everything. And then to wake, and learn that it wasn’t true, and all the terrible things had indeed happened.

They were not nightmares, these dreams, but they were no less horrible. In fact, they were worse than nightmares. For they made him envision and believe in a world which didn’t exist, one where everything was different. A world that he longed for. And instead he had to wake to this bleak reality.

The reality that Steve was dead. That Bucky had spent 70 years murdering people. And everything that should have been said remained lost. There would be no justice from the people who had wronged him. There would be no happy ending.

There would be no closure.

There was nothing left of Steve. There was nothing left of Bucky Barnes, just a pale imitation of him.

He felt a desperate urge to try to find Steve, in perhaps the only place he could.

He checked the time on his phone. Thursday 7am. No therapy today. He could travel and be back in time for his session tomorrow morning. The flight to Washington would only take an hour and a half. Something in the back of his mind told him this was probably a bad idea. He dimly recalled Christina saying something about obsessions leading to self-harming behaviour, but he quickly eradicated those thoughts from his mind.

It will be fine, he thought.

He was wrong.

 

--------

 

 

The next day was Friday. Friday 10am was when he was to meet with Christina for one of his thrice weekly therapy sessions. But it was now 10.10am and he was still outside the building that contained her office. He stared up at the windows and knew he needed to go in, but every time he approached the main entrance he found he couldn’t actually make himself go inside.

He’d been pacing around outside since 9.30am, working himself up into such a great state of anxiety that he now couldn’t go in. And now he was ten minutes late. Dr Raynor had impressed upon him ever since their first session that he couldn’t be late. At fifteen minutes late she was obligated to call the police.

She had already tried calling him: twice. Once at 10.05 and again just a few seconds ago. He’d not answered.

He’d fucked up last night. He’d slipped up in a really big way, and there was no way to hide it. He’d been more affected that he would ever have admitted to himself by the actions of the last weekend, going to that Hydra base, and reopening painful emotional wounds. It had hung over him all week.

The entire week had been plagued with nightmares. He promised Christina he would try to sleep every night – it was important for him to try to build a routine. But he always had nightmares. And after he woke, shaky and disorientated, he could never get back to sleep. Instead he would spend the rest of the night with his notebooks, jotting down his nightmares of killing people, and trying to match them to dates and names, obsessively trying to fill in the gaps. Sometimes he couldn’t place the nightmare, so he knew this was a memory he’d not yet recovered – another death of an unknown person that he’d have to try to solve.

And then that dream he’d had yesterday morning of Steve and the conversation they should have had - It had been too much. And as he’d recovered from his dream he’d been filled with a desire to seek Steve out in the only place he knew he could find any part of him.

He’d gone to Washington. Not to Steve’s grave and memorial – no, he couldn’t bear that. But he’d gone instead to the Smithsonian. Because he wanted to see some sign of Steve’s legacy, that there was still something left of him, but instead he’d come face to face with more horrific memories, more loss, and more guilt.

It had not been a good idea.

And then when he’d returned back to Brooklyn that evening, he’d spent the entire night doing all the things he shouldn’t do. And here he was now, pacing outside his therapist’s office, ten minutes late, knowing full well that not only he’d fail his drug test, but that the wounds he’d caused himself had not yet had time to heal, and that Christina would ask him about it, and he’d not be able to stay silent. And he’d have to share all the embarrassing and humiliating details of the men he’d met, the things he’d done, and all the shame he felt that even now, after having left Hydra behind him so many years ago, he still lacked control over himself.

At 13 minutes past 10 he knew he couldn’t put things off any longer. He forced himself to enter the building.

She was in reception waiting for him. He ignored her greeting, pushed past her and went into the usual room, and sat down on the sofa. She followed him in and he avoided making eye contact with her.

She sat opposite him.

“You know I’m supposed to call the police if you’re fifteen minutes late,” she said conversationally.

“I am fourteen and a half minutes late,” Bucky said swiftly.

“You’re never late,” Dr Raynor observed. “In fact you’re always early. What’s going on?”

Bucky sighed and leaned back against the sofa. She would push and prod and get everything from him. And then she would write it down in one of her summaries to be read by… whoever. It was all so embarrassing.  

“I’m going to make an educated guess,” she said, “and assume that you’ve been doing something you feel like you shouldn’t, and you’re worried about getting found out. Shall we do your drug test?”

Bucky looked at her, he knew he had a desperate look on his face. Damn his expressive face. It always gave him away.

She nodded, vindicated, and asked him to tell her what he did last night. There was no condemnation in her tone. There never was. She always remained perfectly neutral and calm. He often wondered what she really thought and felt about him as it was always impossible to tell.

Little by little Dr Raynor prised the details of the evening before from him. Every little detail. It was humiliating. He did notice that she wasn’t making any notes however, which helped him feel a little less uneasy. He told her that his evening had been spent with alcohol, drugs, and a vast number of men and then he’d returned home and attacked himself with a kitchen knife he’d bought from a local supermarket. This had only been a few hours ago and the wounds had not yet healed.

“Are you in pain?” she asked him when Bucky told her about the self-harming of the night before. Bucky shook his head. “It looks worse than it is,” he said. It always looked worse than it really was. Because of the serum he could take an extreme amount of damage. Because of his years as the Winter Soldier he could take an extreme amount of pain.

When she asked if he would show her he refused and she didn’t push, and he was thankful for that.

“This behaviour is usually preceded by a trigger,” she said. “An intrusive thought. Do you have any thoughts about what that might have been?”

Bucky shook his head, but didn’t answer because to say ‘no’ would be a lie, and she would know.

“What did you do yesterday?” she asked him. 

Bucky shook his head again, still refusing to speak, but knowing that his silence was speaking for him.

“Something triggered this behaviour last night,” Dr Raynor persisted. “What do you think it was?”

 “I don’t know!” Bucky said, raising his voice in his frustration. “I mean, I don’t know why I do these things. I don’t want to do them but I can’t stop. I’ve never done things like this before.”

“That’s not entirely true is it?” she asked him. “You told me that when you were in the army you cut your arms, and also when you were younger. And you’ve always drank heavily, and smoked. These have been your coping strategies throughout your entire life.”

“I didn’t mean about then,” Bucky said, feeling his face flush at her words. “I meant that it hadn’t been happening since 2014. On the run, or when I was in Wakanda. I was fine. I was coping. I don’t know why it’s all happening now.”

“I think we do know why,” Dr Raynor said calmly, raising a hand and lowering it, a signal Bucky recognised as you’re getting very loud and need to calm down. He chewed on his lower lip and focused on his breathing.

After a moment she continued.

“When you were on the run you were in survival mode, trying to stay alive and trying to stay away from everybody. Your mind was focused on survival. In Wakanda you were in the immediate aftermath of achieving some semblance of freedom, getting the trigger words removed. There was a lot happening in a very short space of time, you had few memories and as you were starting the process of recovery the blip happened. And after we returned five years later you went straight to prison, once again launching you straight back into survival mode.

“Since you came out of the Raft you have been able to focus on recovery for the first time. All of this, your behaviours – the self-harm, is your brain trying to make sense of the things that have happened to you, and this is the first real chance it has had to do so.”

“I wish it wouldn’t,” Bucky muttered.

“And that is why we talk about them, and work on our strategies, and focus on behaviours which are more positive,” she said. “Like socialising and cultivating friendships. Are you speaking to Sam?”

“No,” Bucky said sullenly, “I’m not.”

“You were getting on well,” she said, “is this because he told me what you were doing?”

“Maybe,” Bucky said. He knew he sounded petulant.

How could he put into words how conflicted he felt about Sam? That he wanted nothing more than to spend time with him, to absorb the normalness and brightness that Sam radiated throughout his entire being? Sam was sunny, happy; he sparkled, whereas Bucky was in the darkness. He was a leech; a dark shadow that had done nothing but plague Steve’s existence since 2014. How could he do the same to Sam?

“There’s so many reasons,” he continued quietly. “He deserves better.”

Christina took a moment to consider his words.

“You think you don’t deserve him,” she reflected. “Because he’s a good, kind person and you think you are not.”

Bucky remained silent. He hated how well she was able to draw out his inner thoughts.

“This is more punishment you are inflicting upon yourself,” she continued.

“No, I’m not punishing myself,” Bucky said impatiently. “I just don’t think that in any other circumstance we’d have been friends. We were forced together.”

“Isn’t that how most friendships start?” Christina asked him. “When people find themselves in the same places as others, and find something in common - shared experience perhaps, or friendship through solidarity in difficult times?”

Bucky shrugged.

“Friendship is important,” she persisted, “healthy relationships, human interaction…”

“He’s not my friend!” Bucky interjected angrily. “He was Steve’s friend. I’m not a replacement for Steve.”

“I don’t think he views you as that,” Dr Raynor said. “I don’t think anyone does.”

Bucky frowned and shook his head. “They all do,” he said. “I read my pardon, I see what it says and I can read between the lines. There is an expectation that when I am recovered that I will carry out work for the government, to be useful to them. They want a Super Soldier, like Steve. To replace him. I did all that already, in the war, and for Hydra. They think I should do it all again. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want any of this.”

“Try phrasing this in a different way,” Dr Raynor said. “Focus on things that you do want.”

Bucky frowned. “Whatever for?” he asked sceptically.

“You put so much weight on the things you don’t want, or on things that other people expect of you. These are external motivators, rather than internal ones and you are focusing on negatives rather than positives. When you reframe it and say things such as I want… it then becomes things that you choose.”

This sounded bonkers to Bucky but sure, he’d play along.

“What do I want?” Bucky asked, with a hollow laugh. He looked around the room helplessly for a moment as if seeking inspiration.

“I want to be free of the weight of people’s expectations of me,” he said with passion. “I want to be able to sleep without having nightmares. I want to be able to eat without being sick. I want to stop hurting myself all the time. I want to get drunk. I want to forget. I want to forget everything.”

He was dimly aware that he was close to tears. He brushed a gloved hand across his cheeks and took a deep breath, settling himself.

“I want my stuff back,” he said quietly.

Dr Raynor looked confused. “What stuff?” she asked him.

“My things. From the Smithsonian,” he explained. And then he sighed as he realised it was time to tell her about his visit yesterday.

 

He’d gone there before, back in 2014, after he dived into the river after Steve and pulled him out. He’d seen a sign advertising Captain America’s exhibit and found his feet taking him there on autopilot, in the hope that there he would find some answers to the questions whirling around in his head after his fight with Steve.

He’d not remembered Steve at that point. He’d not known who Steve was. But the strange man in the weird outfit had said things that confused him, and then as he’d been bashing the man’s face in and heard the words “til the end of the line” Bucky had felt such an overwhelming sense of familiarity that it had caused him to pause as he’d desperately tried to work out why this man garnered such a strange and strong emotional response in him.

And so he’d gone there, he’d seen his own face and read about his own death. And, more importantly, learned that Captain America AKA Steve Rogers, the man who he’d just been trying to kill, had been his brother and they’d spent an entire lifetime together, long ago, one that he couldn’t remember at all.

But there’d been a lot he’d not paid attention to.

Going back there yesterday he saw all the things he’d missed back in 2014. It was in the process of being added to – Steve’s death and the recent events fighting aliens weren’t featured yet, but there was a sign up by the entrance informing visitors that there would be new exhibits added soon.

 

“What were you hoping to get from being there?” Christina asked him.

“I wanted to see Steve,” Bucky said. “The real Steve, I mean, as I knew him. It was a bad idea, I should have known better.”

 

He went to the gift shop first, to try to ease himself into going into the exhibit proper. But there he just came face to face with endless bits of junk with Steve’s face plastered all over them: Posters, mugs, pens, tacky plastic junk.

 

“There were mousemats and fridge magnets for sale with the phrase I can do this all day, for crying out loud!” he told Christina furiously. “Like some kind of catchphrase.”

 

There was no sign of Steve in this gift shop, just Captain America.

There was a book called Who was Captain America? And he leafed through it, hoping to see something more personal in there, to see Steve as he really was. But it was all the same old shtick – the same stories that Steve had relayed to the media again and again back during the war. All carefully cultivated and practised stories of an all American hero. They still had his birthday as July 4^th! Did he never correct them? Why not?

Of course he never corrected them, Bucky told himself. It probably reminded him of you.

 

Was it you Steve had asked him, oh so long ago, who told a reporter my birthday was July 4^th?

 

He wondered if Steve had ever told anyone else when his birthday really was. Like Sam, or the rest of the Avengers, or if he’d just gone along with it.

He slammed the book shut and shoved it back onto the display, and looked around the gift shop in despair. There was no sign of Steve here, he realised in dismay. And then he decided to go into the exhibit with some misguided notion that perhaps he’d find something real in there about the man he’d known, and not the myth that everyone had turned him into.

And it was so painful. Too painful. Seeing photographs of the Howling Commandos, seeing their uniforms, reading about missions they had completed. There was Jones, Monty, Morita. And faces that hurt even more: Dugan, Dernier, and Howard.

Seeing that video clip of him and Steve: he remembered that day. He looked happy in the clip, he and Steve laughing. He’d put on his cheerful 'Bucky' face: head tilt, smile, made a joke. We are friends, he’d said, then said something about still being taller than Steve. But despite his external display of happiness, he remembered he’d been falling apart on the inside. It had been the second day after returning to the camp in Italy after being liberated from Krausberg, he’d been considering whether to stay or go home, and he’d just found out that Jack, who he’d been in a relationship with for almost eight years, had got married. And he’d been dragged in front of the cameras. He’d been battered, shocked, bruised, nearly killed, emotionally devastated and then suddenly expected to perform. God how he’d hated performing for the cameras.

He remembered an argument he’d had about it with Steve.

 

People respect you, respect what you do, Steve had said

What’s to respect? Bucky had shot back at him

No more interviews… no more journalists… and no more fucking comic books.

 

“The way such needless violence and death is glorified,” Bucky said to Christina. “Like we were doing something worthy and admirable.”

“You don’t think that’s what you were doing?” she asked.

He looked at her in exasperation. “Come on, Christina,” he said. “You were in the army. You know that the reality is far removed from how it’s made to look.”

 

There was an information board about Hydra in the exhibit. There was a photograph of Schmidt. He’d never met the man, but he had been mentioned by Zola and Lukin in Krausberg. He silently thanked whatever god was listening that there was no photograph of Zola. He didn’t think he could have taken that.

And then he wandered into the auditorium and been faced with another unhappy blast from the past: Peggy Carter, talking about Steve. Seeing her made his skin crawl and he moved swiftly on, not wanting to hear her voice again. He remembered vividly the last words she’d ever spoken to him:

 

What do you think he’ll think of you?

He'd attempted to get her to see reason, that Steve wouldn't approve of what she was doing, and instead she'd thrown it back in his face, bringing up all his doubts, and making him believe that Steve would reject him because of his crime of loving men.

God he’d hated her. She’d contributed massively towards the abject misery he’d been in the last months of the war. And he’d never told Steve the truth about her. But maybe it was for the best. What good would it have done for Steve to know just how much the love of his life had been lying to him? Besides she’d died in 2016. What good would it have done to unearth all that old unpleasantness?

And then he felt his legs take him over to his own exhibit, finally, and he forced himself to read it again, as he barely remembered what he’d read in 2014. It made him sound so worthy, so honourable. A young soldier giving his life for his country. What a joke.

He looked so young in that photograph. While he hadn’t aged much, thanks to the serum, he knew he looked older now. Wearier. War torn. He looked so naïve and innocent in that photo, with no idea of what lay ahead of him.

And as he turned his eyes away from staring into his own face his gaze fell on a display case, containing an object which made his insides freeze.

 

“And that’s when I saw it,” he told Christina miserably.

“Saw what?” she asked.

He sighed, and then began the unhappy process of opening up yet another wound.

Notes:

In this story I kinda changed things a bit so that Bucky only spent three months in Wakanda awake. I did that deliberately so that he wouldn't have the time to recover too much. That's why Dr Raynor mentions about a lot happening in a short space of time there.

Chapter 5: Legacy: Part Two

Notes:

Warnings for this chapter: this chapter is really angsty, it’s full of sorrow, and regret, loss and grief and general misery. I’m sorry. Also be aware there is talking about someone (not a major character) who committed suicide as well as angry feelings about it.

Legacy: Part Two

 

In a glass display case, resting on a stand, close to his exhibit in the Smithsonian lay his old revolver. Correction: his father’s old service revolver. His father had given it to him the last time he had ever seen him. It was a gesture that had meant everything to him. 

And there it was.
 
Right there, on display.

How was it there?

Bucky moved without realising it until he was crouched over the display case, gloved fingers resting on the glass as he gazed, completely enthralled, at the gun. 

He felt his fingers tense as an overwhelming need flooded his entire being: everything in him was crying out that he needed to take it back. It would be so easy to; just a slight pressure from his fingers and the glass would shatter. He had to lift his hand off, to remove the temptation, as he looked around desperately for some explanation as to how his father’s revolver had ended up in the Smithsonian exhibit of all places.

 

“There was a little sign next to it,” Bucky told Christina. “It said my sisters donated it in 1975. There was some kind of anniversary event to mark 30 years since Steve’s sacrifice.”

 

He remained close by the display for quite some time, just staring at the gun. His father’s last ever words echoing in his mind. It was a week before he’d shipped out to England, and his father had given him that gun. It had been a monumental gesture. And then his father had shaken his hand, treated him like an equal. 

I’m proud of you

His mother had been there too. She’d cried, wrapping him in a tight embrace, clinging to him. He’d promised her he’d be fine, that he’d come home in one piece. He’d broken that promise.
 
And that’s when it hit him that it had been a bad idea to come here. He’d come here to find something of Steve and he’d found nothing but pain. This wasn’t what he’d expected.
 
He’d barely thought about his family over the last few months. He shoved those memories deep deep down along with the memories of Howard, of Dugan, of Dernier because of how much pain it caused him to remember. Memory was torture. Memory was murder, it was broken promises, it was loss and grief and sorrow; it was regret.

 

And that was why he’d spent last night doing all the things he shouldn’t be doing. Dr Raynor was right, he had been triggered. He’d made a stupid choice to go to the Smithsonian and he should have known better. All that rubbish she’d spouted about intrusive thoughts leading to obsessions and self-harming behaviour – turns out she’d been spot on, after all.

 

After what seemed like an age of simply hovering there, staring and remembering, he eventually dragged himself away and asked a nearby member of staff if he could speak with the director of the museum. He had to show the man ID to prove who he was. 

The director was giddy with glee upon meeting him and ushered him into a private room to talk. The talk was not a success and Bucky left in a foul mood, and barely in control of his anger.

 

“I wanted to know if they had other things of mine that weren’t on display,” he told Christina. “I wondered if my sisters had donated anything else. 1975 was shortly after my mother died, and I’m sure that’s why they gave things away.”

He quickly clarified, “I don’t mind that they did that. I mean, they thought I was dead, what use keeping all that stuff?”

Christina nodded, and remained silent, letting him continue without interruption. 

“He said they had a lot of things in a storage facility which were mine. When I left at the end of 1942 to travel to England I put all my and Steve’s things in storage. I couldn’t afford to keep the apartment, so Steve was supposed to go back and stay with my parents while I was away. Of course he ran off to become Captain America. But all our things were kept in storage and my mother must have kept them until she died. Anyway, I asked the man what there was. He said books, photographs, letters.”

He paused, taking a moment to calm himself because what that irritating man had said next had hurt, and it still made him feel angry thinking about it.

“I asked him if I could have some of my things back. I didn’t want everything, just the things that mattered.”

He chewed his bottom lip. “But he said I had no right to anything. But that can’t be correct can it?” 

He wasn’t really asking her a question and he didn’t wait for her to respond.

“Those are my things,” Bucky said with emphasis. “My possessions. And the man said I’ve been dead too long to have them back. But I’m not dead. I’m right here. I’m alive. It’s not right. It’s not…” He cut himself off before he could finish the sentence it’s not fair. Who was he to demand fairness? 

These items are of historical significance the man had said, and they are the property of the museum.

 Bucky didn’t give a damn whether they were historically significant or not. He’d been proud of his self-restraint really, just getting up and walking out. What he had really wanted to do was hit something, ideally punch that sweaty irritating little man again and again until he was unconscious.  And then smash open the display case and take what was rightfully his. But no, he had restrained himself.

He stroked the arm of the sofa with his gloved metal hand.

“Have you ever been there?” he asked her suddenly.

“Of course,” Dr Raynor said. “I think most people have. They take children there on school trips. Have done since before my time.”

“Hmm…” Bucky said, not really listening, instead watching as his gloved fingers traced the pattern on the sofa. “I took that revolver everywhere, pretty much. Not to use it. I kept it more for sentimental purposes. I was always so afraid of losing it.” He paused. Talking about this was going to be painful, but he needed to get across to her how important it was. His voice shook as he continued.

 “It was my dad’s. He was a marksman in the Great War. I mean, World War One. Not many people know that he taught me to shoot. That’s why I was so good. I was shooting almost before I could talk. And that revolver was his pride and joy. He never even let me look at it, let alone shoot it. One time I ‘borrowed’ it and he whacked me so hard.”
 
He smiled reminiscently, remembering him pilfering it from his father’s safe and dragging Steve out into the street to shoot glass bottles with it. 

“He gave it to me right before I shipped out to England. That was last time I ever saw him.” Bucky’s father had shaken his hand and said those words he’d been desperate to hear from his father for years: I’m proud of you. 

“My dad and I… we didn’t always see eye to eye. And I know he would have disowned me or worse if he ever found out that I was… well, that I didn’t like women.” He could feel his face flame as he spoke. Even now, after everything that had happened, he still felt some shame about it, and he still felt incapable of using the word homosexual or gay as they called it now. A remnant from the time before – self-hated, and shame.
 
“But he was my dad,” he said, “despite all that, and it meant the world to me that he gave me that gun.”

What do you think your father would do if he found out you’re not the ladies’ man you pretend to be? Jack had asked him that question once, a lifetime ago.

I think he would shoot me Bucky had replied, and he’d not been exaggerating. 

He paused. Dr Raynor was still silent. He didn’t think he had ever spoken so much in one go to her before. He knew she wouldn’t speak until she was certain he was finished. And he was not finished. The worst was yet to come.

“I gave the gun to Dernier for safekeeping, just before Steve and I jumped on that train in 1945. I brought it with me by accident and I didn’t want to lose it. I had this vision of it being flung out over the Swiss Alps to be lost forever.”

He laughed darkly, thinking about the irony. 

“He, or someone else, must have taken it back to my parents after I, well, ‘died’. And I wish he hadn’t. I wish I’d taken it with me and let it fall out of that damn train with me.”

And he took a really deep breath then, so that he could force out the next words without faltering. He needed to say this, so that she could understand why this gun was so significant, why it meant so much to him. 

“My father shot himself with it,” he said despondently, “on the first anniversary of my death – February 1st 1946. I read about it…” he cut himself off, unable to speak for a moment because of the emotion surging within him.

The grief he had felt upon reading about his father’s death was still raw, and he had to take a moment to compose himself again. After finding out what had happened to his father he’d stopped looking up what had happened to people he had known. It was too painful. Too unfair. Every person he’d ever known was dead.
 
“He killed himself because he thought I was dead, and I wasn’t,” his voice cracked. “And that gun is right there, on display,” and now he was angry again, “and no-one knows or cares about its history. And it’s mine. And I want it back. Along with everything else they have that’s mine.”

“I can make some enquires,” Dr Raynor said quietly. “I can see about you getting some of your items back. No promises, but I can bring this up with the President.”

Bucky nodded unhappily, and looked away as she made a note in her notebook. He wiped his eyes. 

“That was a lot for you to share,” Christina said. “I can see why this means so much to you. How are you feeling about this, right now?”

Bucky shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He figured it should be fairly obvious how he was feeling right now. But she was looking expectantly at him, and he knew he had to give her something.

“I should never have given Dernier that gun,” he muttered. 

“You blame yourself for your father’s actions,” she interpreted correctly.

Bucky didn’t bother to respond. He felt that was fairly obvious.

“James,” she said, “if someone is determined to end their life, they will find a way to do so. If he’d not had access to that particular weapon, don’t you think he would have found another way?”

“He should have known better!” The words burst out of Bucky in a furious rage. “I was gone! Steve was gone! It was just my mother and three girls. And to use that gun.” He realised he was shouting and quickly quietened himself. 

And where were you? That nasty critical voice spoke in his mind. You weren’t there. He killed himself because you weren’t there. Because you made all the wrong choices.

Once upon a time he’d thought to shoot himself with that very same gun; he’d thought it was the only way to escape the miserable and horrific situation he’d managed to get himself into over the last months of the war. But he hadn’t. Because he knew it would have destroyed his family if he’d done so.

“Anger is a healthy and appropriate emotion to express here James,” Christina said, once she realised he had nothing else to say. “And it is a usual emotion that people feel when someone has ended their own life. Your feelings are valid. And yet, your father must have felt in a very low place to be able to do such a thing. And I think you know what that’s like.”

Bucky did know what it was like. To feel so trapped and to have life spinning so wildly out of control that there seemed to be only one valid way out. The desperate longing to simply not exist anymore was one he’d often felt: before, during and after his life as the Winter Soldier. 

His constant failure and inability to end his own life was a sore point for him. He’d not done it when he could, he’d been prevented from doing so when he tried, in Siberia, and then he’d had his brain forcibly tampered with so he could not ever do so.

Even the release of death shall be denied you - who was it who had said that?

Lukin. That masochistic bastard.

And the Wakandans, to whom he owed a massive debt for which he would forever be grateful, even they had taken that decision away from him, refusing to remove that block in his head that prevented him from killing himself. 

It didn’t mean he’d not tried though, but any time he did it was like his brain paralysed his entire body and made him incapable of carrying anything out which would be fatal. So he could harm himself, excessively, but he could never push himself past that block, no matter how many drugs he took, or how much alcohol he drank.

He didn’t want to say any of this out loud. She knew it all already. What was the point?

“My dad had issues too you know,” he said, instead pulling focus of the conversation away from him and back onto his father. 

“What issues were those?” she asked, knowing full well that he was deliberately trying to deflect from talking about himself, but allowing it regardless. 

“After we joined the war, he was acting oddly. Becca told me he was getting into fights, couldn’t hold down a job, drank too much, was aggressive and angry. Steve said he thought it was shellshock, from when he was in the army.” 

He remembered how thoughtless and cruel he had been when Steve had told him. 

It was years ago Bucky had said you’d think he’d be over it by now

What a cruel irony that he himself would end up with much of the same issues.

“Seems I turned out just like him,” he said. He remembered thinking, long ago, whether one day he would look back and say: 

I turned out just like my father

Guess he really did. Was that his father’s legacy? The family name, a gun, and a whole host of mental deficiencies?

“Your situation is very different, James,” Dr Raynor assured him. “I can’t imagine your father got proper treatment. Shellshock, Battle Fatigue, or PTSD as we call it now, wasn’t managed well back then, at all. It’s not the same for you. We understand now the impact that war has on people, and what people need to recover.”

“Howard said that war creates invisible scars that never go away,” Bucky said somewhat absently. 

Don’t make new ones

“Howard Stark?” she asked him carefully, knowing that this was a trigger point for him.

Bucky nodded.
 
“He said…” and then he cut himself off, choking on the words, as the memory of that conversation with Howard forced itself into the forefront of his mind. He tried not to think about Howard, he always forced those memories away when they surfaced, because it was just so painful to remember those times while knowing what he later ended up doing to him.

We go home. We recover. And, like our fathers before us, we spend the rest of our lives never telling anyone the things we did

“He said that those sort of wounds only get worse as time passes,” Bucky recalled, Howard’s face flickered into his mind as he remember that conversation. Bucky had been in a low place then, drowning in his own misery, and Howard had helped keep him afloat. Howard had helped him survive one of the most difficult periods of his life, and for what?

Something else flickered in his mind... a motorbike, a crashed car.

Help my wife...

He shook his head violently and instead focused on Christina, and what she was saying. He was aware that his right hand was trembling slightly, and he shoved it under his leg. She didn't comment on any of this, for which he was incredibly thankful.

“Well, I understand what Howard must have meant when he said those words,” Christina said, still choosing her words very carefully, “but he was wrong, James. People do recover from these traumas. I see it all the time.”

They say time heals all wounds, but I don’t think that’s correct – not for wounds on the inside at least. I think they only get worse as time passes

Howard again.

He needed to move away from thinking about Howard, he should never have mentioned him. It hurt too much. He shoved the thoughts away.

 “How?” Bucky asked, genuinely perplexed and desperate for the answer.

Christina made an expansive gesture with her arms, taking in the room and the space between them.

“By doing exactly this,” she said. “By talking about their experiences, their feelings, putting things into context and understanding them. That’s what we’re doing every day we’re here.”

Bucky scoffed at this. “If what we’re already doing works,” he said with heavy scepticism, “then why hasn’t anything changed yet? It’s been just about five months. I’d have expected to have made some improvements in this time, but I just feel like I’m getting worse and worse. Look at what happened yesterday after I went to the museum.”

“It can take time,” Christina said. “And different things work for different people.”

“Or maybe you’re just really shit at your job,” Bucky muttered.

She didn’t take the bait.

“You’re being very harsh on yourself,” she told him. “You say you can’t see any difference but I can. You’ve made massive strides already, and far quicker than I might have anticipated.”

Bucky looked at her then, shocked. “Really?” he asked, his voice hopeful. 

“You’ve been doing beautifully,” she said. “I can see it. It’s in all the little things you’ve been doing, every day. Recovery isn’t marked by massive change, it’s incremental. And it is often the case that the person themselves can sometimes be the last one to see it.”

Bucky considered this, wondering if he could believe her. 

 “Like what?” he asked.

She thought for a moment. “Every time you try to sleep at night,” she said. “Every time you attempt to eat even though you fear what will happen. When you look after yourself – that’s why I ask you all those self-care questions you hate so much. Those things are important, no matter how small they may seem.”

He shook his head, “I can’t believe that,” he said, “those are just everyday things.”

“You told me you bought a couch last week,” she said. “That was huge.”

“No it wasn’t,” he said, as if she was stupid, “it was a couch. That’s nothing.”

“But it is,” she insisted. “That’s the point I’m making here. It’s all the little things, just the small steps that you make every day. They may seem unassuming and unimportant but they are actually incredibly significant.”

His scepticism must have still shown on his face as she took a moment to think and then decided to provide further explanation.

“James,” she said, “I’ve worked with people who can go days, weeks, even months never able to get out of bed. And then one day, they do. They get up even if it’s just to open the curtains or get food from the fridge. Maybe that’s the only thing they do before they get back into bed. But it’s a massive achievement. And it’s a stepping stone to more. Because something about that day led them to getting out of bed, and we can then ask – what was it about that day? What was different? And how can we replicate it?”

She paused as if waiting for a response. He didn’t provide one, he felt too confused, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

“Why did you buy that couch?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sam sent me a link… I just thought…” He thought back. “Sam made a joke, said it matched the cheerful décor in my apartment. But my apartment’s depressing as Hell so I just wanted…”

He shrugged, unable to put his thoughts into words.

“You wanted to make things a little nicer for yourself,” Christina suggested. “On that day you made an active choice that would make you feel better.”

“I guess…” he mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed by how earnest she sounded. It was just a couch for God’s sake. 

“That’s not small James,” she said. “That’s a massive achievement, and I’m proud of you.”

He stared at her in disbelief. She sounded so intense, that he had to believe her.

“So we carry on doing this,” he asked, gesturing between her and him. “And then I will get better?”

“If that’s what you want,” she said. “You have to do your part.”

And he did want it. Despite all his scathing remarks about Christina, and about therapy in general, he knew he wasn’t well. He’d known it back in the war, when he first starting showing signs of what he now knew to be PTSD, but back then it was seen as a weakness. And he’d believed it was a weakness, and something that could never go away.  But Christina said it could. She said he could be well.

He wanted to be well. With every fibre of his being he wanted to be well. 

And suddenly what Christina was saying earlier in their session about reframing things in a positive way took on real meaning to him, and he stared at her in astonishment, as she continued scribbling in her notebook.

Maybe she wasn’t all that shit at her job, after all, he thought wryly.  And for the first time he was really starting to believe that maybe all this therapy actually had a point, and might end up doing him some good.

“So I asked you how you felt about what happened at the Smithsonian,” Christina prompted him.

“I just keep thinking about what else the museum has stored away,” he said. “The man said there were photographs. I keep thinking there must be photographs of my family. I don’t remember any of them clearly, not properly. I don’t even remember what my sisters looked like.”

Three faceless little girls; blurred and lost. 

 “Tell me something you can remember about them,” Christina said. 

Bucky’s first instinct was to scoff, remind her that he’d said he couldn’t remember anything, but then he reconsidered, thinking that perhaps there was something to the way Christina worked. He took a moment to think about it and yes, maybe there were some details he could remember.

“Jeanie, Judith and I,” he said slowly, as if worried he might make a mistake, “we all took after our dad. And he looked like his brother, our Uncle Harry.” A sudden recollection shot into his head from nowhere. “Uncle Harry had five daughters, and they all looked exactly the same. People always said there was a ‘Barnes’ look and we all had it. But not Becca.” 

His voice sped up, as he became more certain of himself. 

“Becca looked like my mother, she had blonde hair and she often wore it in curls. It was really long. She liked the colour purple, she wore ribbons and she liked to pick flowers in the park. And her eyes were…” he faltered mid speech, as a surge of emotion flooded through him. Loss. Grief. Remorse. Regret. Becca was long gone, dead and buried and forgotten. And she’d been so beautiful, vibrant, witty and funny and full of life. 

He was eleven years old when Becca was born, he held her in his arms when she was only a few hours old. And where was she now? A rotting skeleton with only one person left alive who could remember her as she’d been all those years ago. 

“Why are you making me talk about this?” he asked in horror. “This is cruel.”

“I think you can remember more than you realise,” Christina said simply. 

Bucky’s mind raced as he realised she was right. There were memories, and they were flooding through him now. Mainly of Becca, because they were closer in age, but there was still a large gap between them. His parents had tried desperately for more children but had been unable to for years. And then they had three girls, to his mother’s great delight. She’d always wanted daughters. 

The last time he’d seen Becca had been just before her 16th birthday, he’d taken her to the World Expo and they’d seen Howard Stark’s flying car. She made a joke about his bad driving.

It was strange, he thought: to feel so sad thinking about her, and yet to be glad at the same time. Sometimes a memory could bring such pleasure, whilst at the same time causing incredible pain – a strange juxtaposition of torture and joy.

“They’re all dead, you know,” he said, completely emotionlessly. 

“Yes,” Dr Raynor said, sounding sympathetic. “I know they are.”

He looked out of the window into the carpark and stared out at the parked cars.
 
“Judith died in 2013,” he said in the same flat and emotionless tone. “I just missed her. She was eighty when she died. She was eight years old when I last saw her. That’s not right. That shouldn’t happen.”

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been crying because he was leaving. She was too young to understand why, but she was crying because their mother was. 

“Do you wish you could have seen her?” Dr Raynor asked him.

Bucky shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “My mother and my sisters lived their lives believing I’d died a war hero in 1945. I couldn’t bear if they knew the truth. I’m glad they never knew what really happened. It just hurts that there’s nothing left of them. There’s no family, no legacy. It’s like they never existed.”

“There’s you,” Dr Raynor pointed out.

Bucky scoffed. “Some legacy,” he said scathingly. He supposed his uncles’ daughters likely married and he probably had distant relatives still alive through them, but to his mind they didn’t really count. His family had been his parents, Steve, and his sisters. And there was nothing left of any of them. 

 “I got panicked recently,” he admitted, “because I found out that my sister Judith’s son – he was called James – was killed in Vietnam.” 

Another one of his desperate searches into the people he’d known, before he’d stopped looking due to how painful it was. He’d felt touched, initially, to see that Judith had named her son after the brother she probably couldn’t even properly remember, only to have that turn to horror when finding out how he’d died.  He’d only been 21 years old. 

“I was active all throughout the Vietnam war,” Bucky reminded her. “I was so worried that I’d killed him. I was responsible for so many deaths during that time, on both sides.” General Makarov had chucked him into the fray in order to cause as much chaos as possible, and to drag out the conflict for as long as possible. Hydra benefited massively from war and international turmoil.

“But I checked the dates and locations and it can’t have been me.” The relief he’d felt after hours of searching through military records, and his own notebooks, when he could finally convince himself that he’d nothing to do with his nephew’s death. 

“But I wasn’t relieved for long,” he said. “I may not have killed that one person, but I’ve killed so many others. People tell me it wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t help. It’s not like I just fell asleep and woke up and realised I’d killed people. I was there. I experienced it. I made decisions, issued instructions, planned things. I remember it all. And even before that I was a soldier, following orders and killing people.”

He’d always been so good at killing people, even if it had been abhorrent to him. 

“Steve was the worst,” he continued. “Since we got reunited in 2016, he was always trying to make me feel better about everything I've done. He was always saying things that he thought would help, but they just didn’t.”

“What did he say?” Dr Raynor asked.

“He said it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault,” He let out a short, derisive laugh.  “I don’t think he really meant it. He refused to see the truth; he refused to see it because of who I was. How can you hate the man when you loved the child? And then he said if it wasn’t you Buck, it would have been someone else. Those people would have died no matter what.” He shook his head.

“But that’s not true is it?” he continued.  “Because they experimented on over a hundred people in Krausberg and they all died. I don’t know why it worked on me; I don’t think anyone knew why. It was only ever going to be me. No-one else could have been the Winter Soldier. I just happened to be the perfect person.” 

His voice turned scornful, “Zola, Lukin… they lucked out getting me didn’t they? I gave them exactly what they wanted. Zola, Lukin, Fennhoff…”

“Who was Fennhoff?” Dr Raynor asked suddenly, latching on to the name as if realising how significant it was. “You’ve never mentioned him.”

Bucky suddenly realised he was veering onto very dangerous territory. That period of time he never talked about: those first horrific nine years in Siberia. But it was like a floodgate had opened, and he found he couldn’t stop – because he needed her to understand; he needed her to know, that no-one carried more responsibility for the existence of the Winter Soldier than Bucky himself.

Chapter 6: Legacy: Part Three

Notes:

It suddenly occurred to me several days after posting the previous chapter that many people may not know who some of the people I'm referencing are. Lukin and Fennhoff characters in the Captain America comics. I also believe Fennhoff (AKA Dr Faustus) shows up in the Agent Carter series (which I haven't watched). I decided to use them in Bucky's story, for the Siberia years. Lukin has already shown up in the prequel story in Krausberg (in just one early chapter), but Fennhoff hasn't yet appeared at all.

Warnings for the chapter: there is reference to rape (no detail or any descriptions) and there is some very - very - wrong thinking and attitudes about it (guilt, shame and victim blaming)

Legacy: Part Three

 

“Who was Fennhoff?” Christina asked.

“Fennhoff was just someone who was there,” Bucky said, trying to sound dismissive, but his heart was thundering in his chest so loud he felt she must surely be able to hear it. He closed his eyes briefly as an image of the man reared up into his mind’s eye. A tall man, quite bulky, about middle age, with greying hair and a moustache. A large bushy beard. He wore glasses and, more often than not, a bow tie.

God, that man brought back such horrific feelings inside of him. Revulsion, horror and fear. Above all fear.

He wasn't just someone who had been there, he'd been Bucky's main tormentor for years. He’d been terrified of that man. Fennhoff knew how to systematically break someone apart, and that’s exactly what he’d done to Bucky.

We’re going to kill you, Fennhoff had told him once, but not entirely. Your body will survive, but you, my friend, will not.

Kill the man, keep the soldier

There will be nothing left of you but obedience, loyalty and fear

Above all there was fear. The Winter Soldier was created in fear.

He did not want to talk about Fennhoff, and the last thing he wanted was all those memories of him shoved back up into the forefront of his mind. He needed to shut this down.

“I chose the easy option,” he told Christina, “and I gave up, just like I always did. All those times in my life I just did what others wanted me to. Like I said, I was the perfect person to be turned into the Winter Soldier. Used to being used. Following orders, the ‘perfect soldier’.”

He let out a bitter laugh.

“I just rolled over and gave them exactly what they wanted.”

“You are being very critical of yourself, James,” Dr Raynor said. “You need to consider the context that these events took place in. Your experiences in the army were a matter of life and death. You need to remember this before you condemn the choices you’ve made in the past. Now while I don’t know the full context of your experiences during the early Siberia years because you’ve not told me –“

“And I won’t,” Bucky interrupted smoothly –

“- but from what I’ve heard it’s clearly not the case that you rolled over and gave them exactly what they wanted. Not when it took nine years.”

What had she heard?

“But I did,” Bucky persisted desperately. Why was she doing the same thing that they all did? People needed to stop making excuses for him.

“I begged Fennhoff to remove my memories because it hurt so much to remember what they had done to me. What they…”

A memory slammed into him forcefully.

 

Reaching out, grabbing the man’s arm. His arm was metal – why was it metal? It wasn’t always metal, or was it?

“What year is it?” He didn’t even know what language he was speaking. What language was he supposed to speak?

“It’s 1953, soldier,” a quiet voice replied.

That meant nothing to him although the thought ‘eight years’ shot through his head. Eight years since what?

“You’re making things very difficult for us,” the man said. And he looked round and realised they weren’t alone. There were other people there. He wasn’t sure if he knew them.

Eight years.

“You need to stop fighting against this.”

Eight years it had been. Eight years of…

“Will you make me forget it all?” he asked “All eight years? Can I forget this?”

“We will,” the man replied. “All of those memories will be gone soon enough, but that’s what we’ll take away last. So you need to stop fighting us.”

He didn’t even realise he had been fighting anyone. He didn’t know what he was doing here. Or why. All he knew was pain. That was his existence. And if the pain wouldn’t stop, at least he might be able to forget it.

The men were talking.

“24 hours of Hell,” one of them said. “And then there’ll be no more problems, I guarantee it. He’s given up. Finally.”

 

He’d given up. And less than a year later it was all over. James Barnes was dead, and the Winter Soldier was all that remained.

He felt so much disgust and hatred for the man he’d been – so weak, so pathetic. Giving in, just as he always did.

 “No,” he told Christina, shaking his head sharply. “No. I’m not talking about this, I’m not.”

His right arm was trembling again, and he knew she could see it. He wiped at his sweaty brow with his gloved left hand, and mentally willed himself to calm down.

“I think it would be good for you to continue,” Dr Raynor said, “if you can.”

“It’s been way over an hour,” Bucky said.

“You’re not going anywhere yet,” was her response.

“I’m done,” he said firmly.

“Always in a rush to leave,” Dr Raynor said casually, “when I know very well you have no plans for the rest of the day.”

Bucky stared down at his feet; his heart was beating very fast. He’d said more than he’d wanted to. Revealed too much. And he knew how Dr Raynor’s mind worked. Once a door had been cracked open, even just a little bit, she would gently push and push until she had flung it wide open. He mentally cursed himself and his lack of self-control. And he cursed her for being here, and forcing him to relive all of this. And for what? So she could one day report him back as ‘fit for duty’ and he’d be compelled once again to follow orders.

Over his dead body.

“Look,” Dr Raynor said kindly, shuffling to the edge of her chair and leaning forward, fingers entwined under her chin, elbows resting on her knees.

“You were forced into therapy,” she said, “as a condition of your pardon. Many people are; it’s not unusual. But the thing about therapy is that unless you truly want to be here, and engage with it, there’s a limit to how much I can help you. You asked me earlier how people get better, how you can get better – they do this by recognising what therapy can do for them, setting goals, and doing the work. That’s why I asked you what you want. If you set your own goals then you will be motivated to seek them – genuinely, internally motivated.”

Bucky stared at her, his brain whirring as he tried to make sense of the things she was telling him. He felt like he was on the precipice of some great knowledge, like puzzle pieces were falling into place in his mind, and they were so close to fitting together. He could tell this was vitally important.

“But you were compelled to be here, and I know you don’t want to be,” she continued. “Ideally I wouldn’t work with you until you are ready, but that’s not the situation we are in. And so I have to try to direct the things we talk about. I don’t ask you these things for fun, nor to cause you deliberate pain. There’s a purpose to this, James. But I won’t compel you to speak about anything you feel you cannot, but I strongly advise you to think about this.”

He shook his head again. There was nothing to think about. It would be a cold day in Hell before he shared any more detail, however minute, about those early Siberia years.

“Can I explain why it’s important?” she asked him.

He wanted to say no. He wanted to shut her up, close the door on this topic forever. But then he remembered part of their earlier conversation and his thoughts about how much he wanted to be well.

He knew he wasn’t well. He knew he was struggling. He knew his behaviours weren’t healthy. And for all that he criticised Dr Raynor, she was all he had. And there were times she really did seem to know what she was doing.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. But it was agreement none the less, and she took it.

“I believe that a lot of your struggles and difficulties that you are having now are linked to trauma experienced during those early years in Siberia. I believe it will be very difficult for you to move past these behaviours without understanding and exploring where they came from.”

She paused for a moment and it looked to Bucky like she was battling with herself, about whether to continue or not, and he felt a heavy dread in the pit of his stomach. When she next spoke it was slowly, cautiously, and with the air of someone choosing their words very carefully.

“I know, James, a great deal more than you think I might about that period of time you won’t talk about. I know what kind of torture you experienced, I know about the suicide attempts,” she paused again before continuing in the same very calm and impassive tone, “and I know that you were raped.”

Bucky recoiled viscerally at her words.

“Stop!” a strangled shout escaped from him, and she fell silent. Bucky stared at her in horrified disbelief. He’d thought the early Siberia years had been his secret. All the efforts they had made to break him, into pummelling him into submission any way they knew how before activating the serum.

Fennhoff was an expert in psychological terror. He’d been terrified of the man before too long.

“How do you know these things?” he asked, his voice shook but he somehow got the words out.

“I was passed on this information, when I was first approached to work with you,” she said.

“From the President?” he asked. “Where did he get this from?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Really,” she said upon seeing the look of scepticism he shot her way. “I was just given access to some translated documents, to help me understand…”

“Where did they come from?” he repeated his words slow and hard. Every muscle in his body was tense, and his hands clenched tightly into fists – metal and flesh.

“I’m not keeping secrets from you James,” she said, “I really don’t know.”

“I want to see them,” he demanded.

“I don’t recommend that, not yet,” she said. “But I won’t prevent you if you insist.”

Bucky suddenly realised exactly what would be in those files. All those meticulous notes Fennhoff and Zola kept about all the hell they’d put him through during those torturous years. He could picture Fennhoff now, standing over him writing in his neat German cursive, whilst issuing instructions to his assistants.

“No,” he said, quickly. “No, I don’t want to see them.”

He sank back into the sofa cushions, feeling completely deflated.

“How much do people know?” he asked. “Am I ever to get any privacy?”

“There’s only a few people who have seen these things,” she told him. “The same people who see our notes. It’s highly confidential.”

He scoffed at this. Or he tried to. The noise that came out of him sounded more like a whimper. And he winced at how feeble he sounded. He’d never wanted anyone to know what had happened in Siberia after the fall, and had believed that all those horrors remained safely in the past where they belonged.

“And it’s good that I know these things,” she said, trying to sound convincing, “because then I can start the conversation about them.”

He stared blankly across at her.

“I hate this,” he said, completely emotionless. “I really hate this.”

“I know you do,” she said. And she sounded genuinely sympathetic.

Dr Raynor then leaned back, checked the time on her watch. Bucky knew without looking that he had been here for almost two hours. Pretty much the longest time together they had had, and the most he had ever spoken. The most he had ever revealed.

“I think we should speak more about this,” she said, “because we’ve often danced around the edge of the really nitty gritty stuff, and you’ve always stepped back from properly exploring it. Which is fine, this is about working at your pace. I understand that it is nearly impossible for you to accept the bad things that happened to you because it makes it easier to hate and blame yourself. But you’ve asked me how to get well, and I’m telling you what steps are likely needed to help you get there.”

“And I’ve told you,” Bucky cut across her angrily, “that these are things I won’t talk about. Don’t push me.” He didn’t mean it to come out sounding like a threat, and he was momentarily worried that that’s how it would be perceived. But Christina appeared unaffected by his anger.

“Fine,” she said, “I won’t ask you talk to me about things you clearly are not ready to explore. And I know it’s a hard prospect, stepping so far outside of your comfort zone. But I strongly advise that this is the direction we need to move towards in future sessions. But that’s for another time.”

Bucky let out the breath he had been holding, relieved.

 “I know you’re not going to be happy about this,” Dr Raynor then said, “but I’m putting you on high alert over the weekend. This session has been emotionally draining for you, and I’m not happy just letting you walk away to spend the weekend entirely alone.”

Bucky groaned and put his head in his hands. Suicide watch, again. People turning up at random times of the day and night, searching his apartment, ringing him constantly, having to give detail about everything he did.

At least it wasn’t the full on babysitting, but it was still incredibly intrusive, and he loathed her for putting him through it again.

“What’s the point Christina?” he moaned. “You know I can’t kill myself. It’s a waste of time and resources and I hate it.”

 “You take great delight in exploiting your loopholes to try to lie to me,” Dr Raynor said. “I am under no illusions that you have not considered many ways in which you may manage to exploit loopholes to end your life. I have been in this job long enough, James, to recognise when I am with someone on a Friday who may no longer be around on the Monday.”

Bucky looked up at her, wondering if she had lost many clients in this way.

“Has that happened to you?” he asked.

She nodded. As usual her face was well schooled, giving away no emotion, but he thought he could see a glint of something in her eyes. And his heart almost went out to her. Almost.

“Am I right to be worried about this, James?” she asked him.

Bucky wanted to say no. But that would be a lie, and he really couldn’t deal with the headaches that spontaneously appeared whenever he told an outright lie. They took ages to dissipate. He settled for a shrug and a noncommittal noise, which he figured was probably a full response in itself. 

And she was right, he reasoned. He had spent quite a considerable amount of time trying to work out how to bypass the block on his brain that prevented him from causing himself a fatal amount of harm. He had ideas, the problem was in the execution of those ideas – they relied too much on luck, or on the competencies of another person. Death by cop was an idea that had its appeal, but there was always a chance he’d not actually get shot, or shot fatally, and if he went on a rampage to try to get that response chances are innocent people might die, and he’d just end up back in prison. Or worse he’d be confined to a mental institution of some kind. And his life would be considerably more restricted than it was now.

And if he failed once, he felt fairly certain that he’d never be left in such a position that he’d be able to try again.

Damn the serum for making him so hard to kill, and damn Hydra for making it impossible for him to do it to himself.

“I will treat you as I would any client,” Dr Raynor said. “Do you need me to walk you through the rules again?” she asked him.

Bucky shook his head. He knew the rules for ‘high alert’. Phone check ins every two hours during the day and someone would check on him in person at random times in the mornings and evenings. He would be drug tested and they would check for signs of self-harm. If they chose to search his apartment he had to let them. If he didn’t comply or there were issues Dr Raynor would send people to stay with him round the clock until she deemed it no longer necessary – her ‘minions’ sent to ‘babysit him’. Nice enough people, he supposed, but he considered them her agents of evil.

“I will ask you once again to ring me if you are experiencing intrusive thoughts or negative, harmful compulsive behaviours that you cannot manage using our strategies. Out of hours, you ring my emergency line,” she reminded him.

Bucky nodded. He knew all this. He knew he could call at any time of the day or night if he was experiencing difficulties of any kind. He’d never once phoned, and nor did he think he ever would, but he nodded anyway. He’d agree to anything right now, he just needed to leave. He needed to put this therapy session behind him.

“Can I go?” he asked, desperate to get out of here. He felt he had been here for hours. He wanted a smoke, he wanted a drink. Well, he wanted to get drunk but that was never going to happen.

Once he was finally released and left the building he leaned on the wall outside, lit a cigarette and breathed the smoke in deeply, trying desperately to relieve even just a little amount of the stress and anxiety he was feeling. 

Of all the sessions he’d had with Christina that had been by far the hardest. He’d said so much he’d thought he’d never say to anyone. Revealed too much.

He’d spoken to her about personal things before, of course he had. And to the psychiatrist who’d assessed him on the Raft. None of that had bothered him. And it had had a positive outcome, as it had helped him regain many of his pre- 1945 memories.

He’d also talked a lot about his Winter Soldier years: His missions, his kills. His acts of terrorism, sabotage, murder and political assassinations since 1954.

But he’d had one stipulation: he would answer no questions about the period of time directly following his fall from the train. Those nine years 1945 – 1954 were to be his secret. He was often asked about it, in prison. Over and over again he was asked about what happened after he fell from the train and he didn’t answer a single one of those questions, no matter how many times the question was asked.

Did you lose your arm in the fall?

No he hadn’t. But it had been irreparably damaged in the fall

When was it removed?

Sometime between 1950 and 1953. He was hazy on the exact date.

Did the fall affect your memories, is that why you lost them?

No he did not lose his memories in the fall.

How did they take away your memories? Tell us about the machine they used.

The fucking Memory Suppressing Machine. He was docile by the time they started using it, and he never once tried to stop them.

How did they control you? Tell us about the trigger words.

After they’d successfully eradicated James Barnes from his worthless shell of a corpse they’d used a mixture of torture, relief, and electricity to make his brain subservient to whoever said the correct words in the correct order.  He couldn’t remember the process entirely, but it was Hell and it took almost a year to fully complete.

Did you experience torture like you did at Krausberg? Did they experiment on you? 

Yes, but it was worse.

Who was there? What did they do?

Fennhoff. Zola. Lukin. Grigorij. And you don’t want to know what they did. 

Rogers believed you were brainwashed. Did you lie to him? What evidence do you have to back up this claim?

Don’t listen to a word Steve Rogers said.

They asked all these questions that he’d answered only in his mind, but they’d known about it anyway, according to Christina. He wondered just how much was relayed in those files she’d been talking about. She hadn’t seemed to know who Fennhoff was when he’d mentioned the man’s name earlier. Perhaps names had been redacted. Maybe some other stuff had been as well. Maybe a lot was unreadable - this paperwork was decades old. The translations were likely to be shoddy too.

I know you were raped Christina had said.

God, to hear it like that, to be verbalised so plainly; it was horrendously humiliating. And if she knew this, then others knew it as well. Shame and embarrassment rushed through him at the thought.

Rape. He’d never thought of it like that. He didn’t like to think of it with that word, it felt so degrading and pathetic somehow. He preferred to simply think that he’d been fucked, it felt less embarrassing; to use that word rape made him out to be a victim.

He supposed that exactly what he’d been. So weak and useless.

Thank God Steve had never known all those details. Steve had asked him questions – questions about Siberia, about what happened after he fell from the train, but it was easy to avoid answering those questions. But what if Steve had known? What if Steve had seen these files too?

His face flamed at the thought and he shoved his head into his hands and moaned.

God! He wished he’d never gone to the museum yesterday, it had been such a bad idea because it had led to all this.

He’d gone to the museum to find Steve’s legacy and instead he’d come face to face with his own. Legacy was what you left behind. Steve’s legacy was strength, honour and sacrifice. What was Bucky’s? The Winter Soldier: victim and murderer, weakness and cowardice.

He’s given up, finally Fennhoff’s words repeated themselves over and over in his head.

He felt a sudden urge to do something extreme, to punish and hurt himself.

Maybe Christina was right, maybe he did need babysitting this weekend. 

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and, sighing, he pulled it out. One of the rules of being on ‘high alert’ was that if Christina or one of her babysitters rang he had to answer it. It seemed a bit soon though, he’d only just left her office. If Christina looked out one of these windows she’d see him standing right there. Maybe it was a test.

It took him a moment to register that the name that had flashed up wasn’t one of Christina’s minions, it was Sam.

He stared at Sam’s name for a moment. His first instinct was to reject the call and carry on ignoring him, but then he thought back to what Christina said earlier.

Healthy behaviours, friendships, human interaction

Socialising was something that normal, sane people do. And apparently Sam was his friend. Sam cared about him, treated him like a normal person, made insensitive jokes that made him laugh, told him off when he was being belligerent and challenging (which was practically all the time), told him stories about his sister and his nephews and moaned about the family boat. Sam never asked difficult questions, he never tried to absolve Bucky of his guilt.

He could answer the call.

And then the vibrating stopped, he’d taken too long to deliberate. He considered calling Sam back, and he was in the process of taking off his glove to make the call but then he stopped himself.

It wouldn’t be fair to Sam, he thought, to expose him once again to his own manic craziness. If Sam were truly his friend, he certainly was not a repository for Bucky’s own guilt, grief and drama.

He cursed his indecisiveness and his general ineptness. Once upon a time he’d been a social butterfly, casual conversation and chat was a skill he’d had in spades; and now he was so incapable. But if Sam was his friend, truly his friend, he thought, then how could it be right to use Sam to make himself feel better?

There would be a time to talk to Sam, but it was not now. Not when he was still reeling from the emotional turmoil this therapy session had provoked in him. They could speak later.

There, he’d made a decision.

Resolved, he shoved his phone back in his pocket, and headed home. If that’s what it could be called.

 

Chapter 7: Futility

After returning home Bucky tried to push that horrendous therapy session from his mind, but that was no easy task. He put on the television and tried to distract his mind with something mindless, but he kept finding himself back on his feet, pacing round his apartment, his mind playing over and over again the things he had said, and the things which had been said to him.

He felt so embarrassed and ashamed by how much he had revealed to Christina during that session, cringing internally every time he revisited the words he’d spoken to her, cursing his own stupidity and thoughtlessness. And he cursed Christina herself for knowing exactly how to play him, for knowing exactly what to say to get him to open up.

Despite all this he quite liked Christina. Initially, he had been determined to dislike her. He’d labelled her in his mind as no more than a tool of the government; someone to criticise him and tell him off. He had it in his mind that she was there to ‘fix’ him and make him ‘combat ready’, to send him back to his new masters, with new orders to follow.

But in reality she seemed to genuinely care about his well-being, and she was easy to talk to.  She always remained calm and in control no matter what he was talking about, she never expressed horror or disapproval.  She’d never made him feel ashamed; he could do that well enough himself. And she had been helpful. While he hated being in this position, he knew it could be a lot worse. He’d met several psychiatrists and psychologists while he was on the Raft, and most of them were completely incompetent, and were in way over their head, had no idea how to speak to him, and just appeared to be terrified of him. But Christina was made of tougher stuff, probably because she’d been in the army. She had a no-nonsense attitude; she could be strict, but also kind. And there were times when he really believed she might have what it took to fix him.

Bucky had meant it when he said to her earlier that he wanted to be well. He knew he wasn’t well. Well people didn’t act like him. She said he had post-traumatic stress disorder, or perhaps it was complex post-traumatic stress disorder - (she used acronyms that he could never keep track of) -  along with a whole host of other conditions he’d been diagnosed with while he was on the Raft. He’d not bothered to read his assessment, and he didn’t want to know all the details. He had no idea what the terms meant, whether they were different ways of describing the same thing, or whether they were completely different. He didn’t want to know: he didn’t need a reminder of just how messed up he’d become.

While terms such as shellshock and battle fatigue were well known to soldiers in his time, they were terms that were barely understood. It was known that war could turn men’s minds to madness, but it was the men themselves who were blamed, rather than the war itself. So ultimately this was an entirely new concept to him. Mental health wasn’t something people were very aware of back in the 30s and 40s. People with issues were considered weak, and were expected to ‘man up’ and just ‘get over it’. They were considered cowards. He himself had been guilty of that way of thinking too.

But now he understood more about it. Dr Raynor had spent quite some time explaining things to him about mental ill-health and distress, about trauma, and how it can affect the way one thinks and behaves. That being mentally un-well was an illness like any other, and not something that people could just magically fix by themselves through sheer force of well and mental bullying. That it could be treated, sometimes with medication, sometimes with therapy, sometimes both. People weren’t confined to institutions like they were in Bucky’s time; those poor sods who got their brains zapped, or cut up.

In their third session together Dr Raynor had explained it to him in a way that made so much sense:

If someone has a broken leg do you just expect them to walk on it? No. You give them crutches, they have surgery, and they have to rest and get well. Mental ill-health is no different. It’s an illness and needs to be treated as no less than a broken leg or any other injury or health condition. And it can be treated.

He’d never thought about it like that before, and it was a description that helped him come to terms with his own issues. And it helped to hear her tell him about other people with similar issues. It helped to think that it wasn’t just him who had these problems, that it wasn’t just him who engaged in extreme self-harming behaviour, or whose sleep was plagued with nightmares. He wasn’t the only one who needed a light on while he was sleeping. It wasn’t just him who felt like he was always being followed – he did ask Christina about this and she swore blind that no-one was following him and he believed her – turns out it was just paranoia. 

Bucky hadn’t expected to be pardoned, he hadn’t expected to be set free, and he didn’t think he deserved it. But this was the situation he was in and he was determined to make the most of it. So no matter how hard it had been, he had gone into the process with an open mind, and shared things with this woman that he never thought he would ever share with anybody.

The problem was, like he said to Christina earlier, that he didn’t think he was getting any better. It had been several months since he’d got out of the Raft and he really thought there’d be some noticeable positive change by now.  But he still couldn’t control his impulses, his obsessiveness, his maladaptive behaviours as Christina called them, and he still had nightmares.

What was it she had said earlier? It takes time. Different things work for different people.

And more significantly:

I can see a difference. It’s in all the little things you are doing. Every day

And then she’d detailed all the little things she said were signs of progress. He really didn’t know how to feel about that. It seemed ridiculous that simply sleeping, eating and showering were signs that he was getting better, particularly when he was still acting like such a crazy person most of the time.

Dr Raynor had said they ought to work through his experiences between 1945 and 1954; that he needed to talk about that time in order to effectively address these maladaptive behaviours he’d formed.  Just thinking about it made his blood run cold. He couldn’t imagine actually sitting opposite her and freely telling her of all the things that had happened to turn him into the Winter Soldier. He couldn’t even think where he could possibly start.

Just the thought of speaking about it made him feel sick, made his head go fuzzy, and his heart thunder in his chest.

But she thought it would be important for his recovery – what if she was right? What if the only way to properly stop doing all the crazy shit was to talk about the things that started them all in the first place? If he refused, would that mean he’d never be well?

As he paced round and round his couch his mind turned to Fennhoff, Zola and Lukin, and all the others who’d been there with them; thoughts about Siberia, about the things that had happened there after he fell from the train. He’d not even written about it in his notebooks. All those hours he spent chronicling names, dates, and last words in his notebooks, and he had not written a single line about the time pre 1954.

These thoughts weren’t going anywhere good. He needed something to distract him. He’d been back from therapy for several hours, and received two check-in calls already, and he hadn’t once managed to stop his agonising. He knew how his thought processes worked well enough by now to know that he was only a short step away from engaging in some very unhealthy behaviours.

He ought to ring Christina, but then he knew she would send someone round to stay with him. It was only Friday afternoon; he really didn’t want someone with him for the entire weekend. And he didn’t want to admit failure and defeat so soon.

Work on our strategies Christina had said. And she had offered many strategies for disrupting these negative thought processes. Going for a walk, counting, deep breathing, meditation, saying the alphabet backwards, cooking, cleaning or reading, amongst others. He’d never once tried any of them.

He slowed his pacing and considered his surroundings. The apartment was still a state, and Christina would be sending someone over to check on him this evening and tomorrow morning. Christina said it was the little things that mattered, small actions that were indicative of progress, and he did feel ashamed looking around the room, at how awful it looked.

He decided that this was something he could fix.

You wanted to make things nicer for yourself Christina had said earlier about him buying his couch, on that day you made an active decision to make yourself feel better

He would feel a lot better if he wasn’t living in squalor, and not having to deal with the shame and embarrassment when Christina sent the support worker over. And it would be something productive, could keep his mind focused on something else.

He threw himself into tidying with a ferocious energy which came as a complete surprise to him, channelling all that shame, embarrassment and anger into trying to make his apartment organised. He threw out all the empty bottles and cans, poured all the alcohol down the sink, along with some very disgusting, lumpy out of date milk he found in the fridge; he even dug out the hoover and ran it over the floors.

After answering a check in call from one of the support workers, he went shopping and bought a whole load of cleaning products, and spent the rest of the day dusting, scrubbing and mopping; he also opened the window to get out some of the dreadful smoke smell, and sprayed the entire apartment with some weird fragrance which made him sneeze.

When he finished he collapsed with exhaustion on the couch and surveyed his surroundings with a critical eye. He actually felt… not good, that wasn’t quite right… but he felt better. It was clean, it was tidy and he’d done that. He imagined telling Christina about this on Monday, he had a feeling she’d be pleased with him.

He could honestly say he was pretty pleased with himself.

He turned on the television and fiddled idly with his phone. The notification of Sam’s missed call from earlier was still prominently displayed. His fingers hovered over the green call back button.

Would it be wrong to call Sam? He’d felt earlier that it wouldn’t be fair to ring Sam, but he was feeling calmer now, less stressed. He felt almost on a high from his uncharacteristic burst of productivity. He felt so good that he hadn’t even craved a cigarette for hours. The prospect of a friendly chat was actually an appealing one, as long as he held back from offloading too much on Sam. Sam liked to talk, Bucky could just listen. And this was something else Christina would approve of, and then she’d write it in a summary to be fed back to the President and whoever else and they would see that he was getting better.

He'd tidied, he'd socialised. Perhaps tomorrow he'd go shopping for more furniture and tell her about that as well, for her to add to Monday's report. Maybe that would help bring all this to the finish line as soon as possible, and he could avoid talking about all the stuff Christina wanted him to talk about.

He made the call. Sam answered on the third ring.

“You actually called me back, I don’t believe it!” Sam said in greeting. “I think this is the first time we’ve spoken on the phone since before Christmas. How are you doing?”

Bucky avoided answering the question by instead asking Sam how he was doing. Sam sounded cheerful and chattered away about his family for a long time. He told Bucky how Cass and AJ were doing in school, how big they were now, how proud he was of them. Cass had secure 1^st place in a spelling bee, and AJ got an A in a maths test. It was nice to hear about and Bucky was glad he had made this call. Sam was a stellar conversationalist; no matter what he could always find something to talk about.

“I’ve got some military contracts,” Sam told him. “All hush hush, though, can’t give details. Got to start earning my keep, right? Can’t keep sponging off my sister forever.”

“Nothing too dangerous, I hope?” Bucky asked him, unsure where his sudden care for Sam’s well-being sprung from.

“Nah,” Sam said. “Piece of cake, after everything we’ve been through. We’re Avengers remember?”

Bucky could picture Sam grinning down the phone. Bucky avoided correcting Sam’s description of them both as Avengers – Bucky hardly felt he himself fit into that label, but he wasn’t interested in getting into a debate about it. It was a conversation that would likely lead to talking about Steve, and what Steve would have wanted, and he really didn’t think he could cope with that.

At that thought Bucky’s mind suddenly went to something of far greater importance:

“Will you be using the shield?” Bucky asked. He knew this was a sensitive topic, he knew he shouldn’t mention it, but he was desperate to know. Steve had died wanting Sam to use the shield, Steve had believed in Sam. Bucky believed in Sam too, and Sam had not once mentioned it, or used it.

Bucky remembered the moment that Steve died, after requesting that Bucky give the shield to Sam and pushing it into Bucky’s hands. Bucky had then stood, swiftly turned, and thrust the shield towards Sam before stepping away. It would be disastrous for the shield to fall into the wrong hands, but Bucky knew that Sam was the right person.

Sam was silent on the other end of the phone.

“Sam?” Bucky prompted, moving the phone away from his ear to check that they were still connected.

“Not the time, Buck,” Sam replied. His tone was friendly, but it was firm. Bucky bit his lip and held himself back from pressing further. He wracked his brain for something else to say.

“I cleaned up the apartment,” Bucky told Sam hesitantly. “It looks a lot better now. And I bought some furniture.”

Well, he’d bought a couch. One item of furniture, but it was better than nothing, and he would buy more.

Sam responded positively to this, saying he couldn’t wait to see it.

“Maybe,” Bucky responded, as he cast his eye around the room again. Maybe after he’d done some more work to it. He wasn’t entirely certain he wanted Sam to see it yet. He was still embarrassed about the last time Sam turned up.

And then there came a knock at the door, making Bucky jump; he’d been so focused on his conversation with Sam that he’d lost all track of the time, and hadn’t been paying attention.

“I have to go,” he told Sam. “Christina’s sending her babysitters round this weekend and there’s one at the door right now.”

He ignored Sam’s follow up question about what had happened that led to the babysitters coming round and hung up on him as the woman let herself in. They all had keys to his apartment. Knocking was a courtesy, and not all of them bothered to knock. This one was Caroline, ex-military as they all were, and he didn’t like her very much. She was similar to Christina in her manner, brusque and forthright, but lacking her kindness.

“You took your time,” she informed him as her greeting, and immediately began opening drawers and cupboards and looking around.

“I was on the phone,” Bucky told her.

“Hmm,” she said, and left to go and poke around the bedroom and bathroom. He waited for her in the living area.

“You tidied,” she observed when she returned. “It looks good.”

Bucky actually felt some pride wash over him at these words. She’d noticed.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I did.”

Then she asked him about what else he had done today, and he answered her questions obediently.

She left after about twenty minutes, and Bucky spent the rest of the evening working through his Wikipedia reading on his phone.

He fell asleep on the sofa, feeling better than he had in a long time. It’s amazing how good being productive can made you feel.

He woke up in the early hours of the morning in a cold sweat, and quivering, launching himself upright and taking deep breaths. More nightmares. He stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on to his face, and stared at his pale reflection in the mirror. His eyes looked so haunted and hollow, had he always looked like that?

Images from his nightmare drifted through his mind as he stared at his reflection. This nightmare had been different from the others. Not about murder this time. Not about the cyro-chamber, the red book or the Chair.

This nightmare had clearly resulted from his conversation yesterday about Siberia. He cursed himself once again for bringing it up, putting these thoughts and memories back to the forefront of his mind and now he was dreaming about them.

Images flashed across his mind, one after another after another.

His hand shook as he wiped the water off his face, as the faces of those who had tortured and assaulted him lingered in his mind’s eye.

Shame and self-loathing encompassed his entire being, and all he wanted to do right now was find a knife and attack himself until those feelings were eradicated.

He took deep breaths to steady and ground himself. This is an intrusive thought he told himself, which gets followed by compulsive and obsessive behaviour. He recognised what was happening, he could name it; he understood it. This was the point at which he should ring the out of hours number and talk to someone.

But he really didn’t want to.

Instead he pulled on some clothes, his gloves and went out for a run. Exercise is good - releases endorphins. All the ‘feel good’ chemicals. It was one of things Christina said could help.

She’d be pleased, he thought, that he was thinking about her strategies and implementing them.  

He jogged for several hours; he had a lot of stamina. Then returned home for a shower and for his morning ‘check in’ visit. He still felt restless and uneasy.

What he really wanted was to get drunk. To drink so much alcohol that he wouldn’t remember anything. And then pass out in an alleyway somewhere like he used to do and wake up the next day with a raging hangover.

He’d told Christina he didn’t want to engage in his self-harming and destructive behaviours yesterday and he had meant it. And yet somehow he always found himself in these situations, unable to stop himself. And it never helped in the long run. It gave him want he needed in the short term – a brief respite from the agony inside his head, but it just made him feel awful afterwards. And then he would have to tell Christina about it.

It’s a highly frustrating thing, being witness to your own negative self-destructive behaviours, and being powerless to stop them. Practically screaming at yourself to stop while doing the thing anyway. When you are waging war against your own brain, a brain that is determined to be your own enemy, how is it possible to win? And even though he was no longer the Winter Soldier, how was it that he felt he had less control over his own mind and body now than he did then?

He was still restless after his shower and he didn’t know what else he could do. His mind continued to play out the images from his dream and he knew what he wanted to do, but he was trying so desperately to do things properly and not give in to his brain’s self-destructiveness.

Routine, he thought suddenly, that’s what Christina was always saying – routine is good. Structure in the day: breaking the day up, getting into regular and normal habits, taking care of yourself.

And it was midday. People ate at midday. It was normal and it was a healthy thing to do.

He began searching his cupboards for something to eat. He had to have something here, surely? He didn't want to go outside again.

Do you just live on beer and cigarettes? Sam had asked him several weeks ago. God, it was fucking depressing the way he lived.

After some digging he found a lonely can of tomato soup. After some more digging highlighted the fact that he didn’t even own a saucepan, he poured it into a bowl and shoved it in the microwave.

God, his mother would be rolling in her grave if she could see him now, he thought grimly as he watched the bowl slowly rotate.

He managed to find a spoon, and after the soup was heated he placed it on the counter and glared at it, spoon in hand, as if it had offended him in some way.

He could manage this, he thought. It’s soup, more liquid than food.

“Pull yourself together, Barnes,” he told himself. “It’s just fucking soup.”

He knew almost immediately that this had been a bad idea. With the first mouthful the overwhelming need to be sick overtook him. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, trying to calm himself.

He could eat soup, he had eaten soup before. This was a psychological, not a physiological, response.

It was a losing battle. He rushed into the bathroom, shoved his fingers down his throat and vomited the soup down the toilet. He flushed it away and collapsed on the floor, resting his head on the toilet seat. He felt like crying. He had felt so good last night, and yet here was another reminder about how fucked up he was. All the strategies hadn’t helped at all; they had just made everything seem so much worse. His mind flickered to the knife he’d secreted on the underside of the couch. No-one ever looked there.

“But that wouldn’t be enough,” he muttered to himself. “You know that. You always need to do more, and it gets worse and worse.”

He thought about what Christina had said on Friday - I have been in this job long enough, James, to recognise when I am with someone on a Friday who may no longer be around on the Monday.

She had been right when she had accused him of trying to find loopholes to bypass the restrictions Hydra had put on his mind. Of course he had tried to think of ways he could kill himself. He often thought about it. Every time he sliced open his right arm he hoped he might go too far. But his mind always stopped him from succeeding. A reminder that no matter what Hydra had owned him completely, and to some extent always would. That he could never truly be set free.

There were moments when all he could think about was how much he just didn’t want to be here anymore. That he didn’t want to exist, that he just wanted things to stop. And he felt so trapped. And then guilt and shame and self-hatred would overwhelm him, and in his mind he would imagine Steve’s voice speaking words Steve himself had never actually said:

You’ve been given a second chance and you just want to throw it away. 

I put in all that effort to save you, for this? Why did I bother?

He couldn’t even fucking eat, that’s how messed up he was. He felt tears prick the corners of his eyes and made no move to stop them. The futility of even trying to be normal, of even thinking he could move forward. He felt he wasn’t human any more – hadn’t been human for a long time. Why pretend? Why try?

He’d felt so good last night, he genuinely thought he’d been making real progress, but he’d been mistaken. It had all been pretence. This was the reality – frustration, futility, abject failure.

He went back through to the main room, retrieved his phone and sat down on the floor next to the couch. He didn’t want to hurt himself again, but he knew that it was an inevitably. And he really couldn’t face the thought of turning up to therapy on Monday morning in a similar state as he had yesterday.

He scrolled through to Christina’s name and made the call. He hated that she had been right, hated that he had really struggled today, hated that he had failed.

“Christina?” he said when she answered the phone. “It’s James Barnes,” he added unnecessarily, momentarily forgetting that names pop up on phones when people call.

“I’m uh… not doing so well,” he admitted, the words almost sticking in his throat. “I think you need to send someone over,” he faltered, feeling ashamed at his own failure, “to stay with me,” he forced out, “until Monday.”

She agreed. And then she praised him.

He felt like a failure and expected criticism for fucking everything up, but instead he received praise.

It was all so confusing.

She asked him to stay on the line until someone arrived to be with him, but he hung up on her, unwilling to degrade himself any further. 

He was so fed up of living like this, every day being a constant struggle to just carry on. It couldn’t carry on like this, it just couldn’t. He couldn’t carry on like this. Barely existing, barely making it through each day, indefinitely with no end in sight. It needed to be better. He needed to be better.

And Christina had told him yesterday what he needed to do to make that happen.  

I don't ask you these things for fun nor to cause you deliberate pain 

I believe it will be very difficult for you to move past these behaviours without understanding and exploring where they came from

The thought filled him with horror and dread, and he had no idea how he could actually go through with it, but he also felt resolved. No matter how painful it would be, it was time to talk about exactly what had happened after the fall.

 

Chapter 8: After the Fall: Part One

Notes:

This is another three parter. This chapter, and the two following it, really justify the mature rating on this story. But I can tell you that the descriptions and flashbacks in these three chapters are the most graphic anything gets throughout the rest of the story. I just thought that might be useful for any of you who might find this kind of thing difficult to read.

Content warnings: This chapter features some description of rape, with a bit more detail than there has been previously, again not explicit detail, but it is made very clear what is happening, and in my view requires a warning. I’ve put in a line break with some dashes (----) when the sequence starts and when it finishes if you need to skip this (it’s more towards the end of the chapter). This chapter also features more detailed depictions of torture through flashbacks and descriptions (not graphic) of suicide attempts.

After the Fall: Part One

 

 

On Monday’s therapy session Dr Raynor asked him to explain what had happened over the weekend, the chain of events that led to him ringing her and asking for help. And he told her everything without hesitation. Unlike previous times where he’d felt he’d fucked up this time there were no games, no reluctance, no attempts to evade answering questions or giving detail. He wanted her help – no, he needed her help. And it required honesty.

The feelings of abject failure and utter futility he’d felt over the weekend lingered in his mind as he spoke to her. He’d thought he’d been doing well, that he’d been doing the right things and yet it had all ended up going wrong. Once again he’d ended up with negative thoughts pervading his mind and a deep and desperate desire to hurt or even kill himself.

He was so tired and fed up of it all. He kept remembering what he’d been thinking on Friday during his last session with Dr Raynor: that he wanted to be well. And for all that Dr Raynor said that she could see improvements, his struggles over the weekend only highlighted to him just how much more work he needed to do. And he needed her to guide him through it, as he could not do this alone. And she’d asked him to always be open and honest, and so that’s what he would endeavour to do. No matter how hard.

He hated that Dr Raynor had been right on Friday, that he would likely experience difficulties over the weekend. He hated that he was such a predictable mess.

She sat in silence while he detailed his attempts on Saturday to battle his intrusive thoughts and maladaptive behaviours, making some notes, and just let him speak. After he was done she asked him how he was feeling.

“Just great, Doc,” Bucky said sarcastically, and then, remembering that she didn’t appreciate sarcasm, changed his tone.

 “I’m not exactly pleased with how things have gone this weekend,” he said quietly.

“I think you should be,” Dr Raynor remarked.  “You did everything exactly as we’ve discussed and worked on together over the last few weeks.”

Bucky felt surprised by this. “I did?” he asked, trying to hide his astonishment.

“You recognised that you were having intrusive thoughts from your nightmare, and you took appropriate steps to alleviate them, using strategies we’ve worked out together,” she explained.

This was indeed true, Bucky thought. He’d gone for a run, showered, and then tried to have a meal – these were all things she’d suggested he do many times during past sessions.

“You didn’t self-harm,” Christina continued to explain. “You didn’t get others to hurt you, you didn’t use drugs and you attempted to engage in self-care. And when it all became too much you called and asked for help. I couldn’t have asked you to manage the situation any better.”

She paused. “In fact,” she said, “you managed it perfectly. This is a massive improvement. And not only that,” she added suddenly, “you cleaned up your apartment on Friday. Let’s not let what happened on Saturday overshadow that achievement.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed as he considered her words. He hadn’t expected this. And he wasn’t entirely sure he agreed.

“I’m proud of you,” she said making Bucky’s breath catch in surprise, and when he looked up at her she maintained eye contact, making him believe that this was real, that she really meant it. That he’d actually done well.

“Maybe…” Bucky said, feeling sceptical, but considering that perhaps she was right. He’d had many weekends where he’d done a lot worse. And it had felt different this weekend; he’d really tried in a way that he’d not tried before. But that’s what made his failure to manage things better so much worse. If you didn’t try what did failure matter? But to give something your all and yet still fall short was terribly demoralising.

But Dr Raynor didn’t think he’d failed, and she wouldn’t lie to make him feel better, he felt certain of that. She didn’t believe in hiding uncomfortable truths, no matter how painful they might be.   

“I’m curious about what it was that triggered this,” Dr Raynor said. “I mean your nightmare, what was it about?”

Bucky broke eye contact. He’d been honest about everything that had led to his difficulties on Saturday, but he had avoided giving details about the nightmare he’d had on Friday night.

“I don’t think that matters,” Bucky said quickly. This was not where he wanted the conversation to go, and he’d been deliberately vague when describing his attempt at sleeping on Friday night, and had glossed over the description of his dream, just saying he’d had a bit of a bad dream.

“It’s usual that your intrusive thoughts are triggered by a nightmare,” Dr Raynor said, “and isn’t that what happened on Friday night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky said, looking down at his hands which were resting, linked, in his lap. As usual he still had his gloves on. Even with Dr Raynor he never liked showing his metal hand.

“That’s the first time in a long time you’ve been reluctant to share your nightmares James,” she pointed out, “you’ve never held back before.”

She was right about that. He’d told her about his dreams of killing people, dreams when he was back in cyrofreeze, or in the Memory Supressing Machine.

“What’s different about this dream?” Dr Raynor asked.

“It’s complicated,” Bucky said.

“Perhaps I can make an educated guess,” Dr Raynor said, ignoring Bucky’s evasion techniques as she always did. Bucky sighed. She was going to the thing again, when she just wouldn’t let something go and would prod and prod until he just gave in and told her everything anyway.

“I’m thinking this is linked to the conversation with had on Friday,” she said, “and that this is linked to that part of your life experience that you have so far been unwilling to talk about. Am I right?”

Bucky thought back to Friday’s session; he knew he had said too much. Getting Fennhoff back into his head had been a bad idea. He remained silent.

Dr Raynor shut the notebook and put it and the pen down on the coffee table next to her, and she leaned forward. That was a sign that she was about to get serious. Bucky braced himself.

“I meant what I said on Friday,” she told him, “I believe that there is a lot within that time period that we need to unpack and understand in order or you to be able to fully address a lot of the difficulties you are having.”

“There’s nothing we need to talk about,” Bucky said hollowly, and unconvincingly.

“I understand your reluctance,” she said, “What happened to you during that time is so traumatic that it is easier for your brain to refuse it happened. This is your brain trying to protect itself. On Friday you blamed yourself, you said that you yourself had made choices to be the Winter Soldier, that you willingly gave up, and I think your brain lets you believe that because the alternative is to accept what actually happened, which is too awful for you to accept and comprehend.”

Bucky lent back against the sofa cushions, suddenly feeling very aware of how soft they were. It was also very warm in the room, but not too warm as to be uncomfortable. The window was open slightly and he could feel the cool breeze. Dr Raynor’s words wafted over him, he couldn’t understand a lot of what she was saying. It was all so far outside of his own experience. The way Dr Raynor spoke about the brain, and trauma, and such things were often far beyond his comprehension.

But he understood this much: Dr Raynor was telling him, as she had on Friday, that in order to get well he needed to talk about the horrific things that had happened during those early Siberia years. Apparently his brain was stuck there, or something like that, and because of that it made him do all these crazy things that he wanted to stop doing. And in order to change this, he needed to talk about it.

His own personal opinion was that such things were best locked up forever and never mentioned, but so far that hadn’t been working. And he knew that. He’d known that on Saturday after he rang for help, when he’d resolved to tell Dr Raynor everything. But now he was here in the room with her, on the precipice of sharing explicit detail from the worst period of his life, it felt like such a daunting prospect. Where would he even begin?

He wasn’t sure he had the courage.

“James!” he snapped back to attention when Dr Raynor addressed him firmly, and he leaned forward to show he was listening.

“You are in recovery now,” she said, “and I think your brain is ready to make sense of the things that have happened to you. You remember I said this on Friday? I think that this dream is a subconscious sign that you are ready to talk about this. You’ve told me about all your nightmares and this is the first one about what happened during your early years in Siberia. And you yourself brought this  topic up on Friday. I think that deep down you understand that our path together leads us naturally here, to talk about this.”

Bucky considered this.

“You really think that if I tell you about what happened between 1945 and 1954 that this will help me get better?” he asked. “It will help me… to be… well?”

She nodded.

“And I’ll stop doing all the crazy,” he stopped himself. She didn’t like it when he used that word crazy. “Uh,” he tried to think of how she’d phrased all the crazy things he did, “the maladaptive stuff?” he finished.

“It will set us on that path,” she said.

He frowned. That wasn’t a yes. If he was going to talk about these things he’d like a bit more of a guarantee of the outcome. But he supposed that was probably too much to ask.

“Why don’t you tell me about your dream?” she asked him.

“Oh God, no!” Bucky exclaimed, images from his dream flashing suddenly through his mind. “You don’t know the context. It wouldn’t make sense.” It was a poor excuse; he just didn’t want to talk about it.

“All-right then,” she said calmly. “This is all for you, James. The reason we are here is for you. But at your pace. If you really cannot talk about this yet, then we won’t.”

Bucky stared at her, his heart beating so fast in his chest he was certain it might explode. She was giving him an out, he realised. He was being given the chance to say no and she would drop it. He thought again about his dream, about his feelings of hopelessness and futility afterwards. He thought about his loneliness and remorse. He didn’t want to feel this way anymore. He wanted to be well.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said desperately.

“I can always prompt you,” she said, “Remember there are things I already know, and I can walk you through them.”

“No!” he said forcefully. “No, I don’t want to know what everyone knows. All the shit that those people wrote down during that time. It’s probably all rubbish. No.”

He tapped a hand on his knee anxiously.

“I think you should just hear it from me,” he finished.

“Okay then,” she agreed.

She waited a moment for him to begin but he remained silent, still completely lost as to any idea how to start talking about this.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened after you recovered from your injuries in 1945?” she asked him. She then made a point of shoving the notebook and pen into a drawer and closing it firmly.

“Just you and me, no notes,” she said.

“You’ll write it up afterwards,” he pointed out.

“Just a summary,” she said, “and if you do want me to leave anything out, we can discuss it. And, as always, I’ll let you read what I send back if you wish.”

Upon her further prompting him he sighed and leaned back again against the sofa cushions.

“Look,” he said, “if I’m going to tell you what happened then, I need you to just let me talk, because I’m not going to be able to do this again.”

“I’m not expecting you to tell me everything in one go,” she reassured him. “It may be best to work through it in stages.”

Bucky shook his head. “No. I need to say this all today, because then you’ll know it all. As it really happened and not whatever crap is written in those files, and then you’ll understand and you’ll have everything you need to know to fix me.”

He raised a hand as she opened her mouth, presumably to correct his statement of being ‘fixed’, so he could carry on without interruption.

“You’re always saying this has to be at my pace,” he reminded her. “This is it. It’s now or never, all or nothing. Just let me get through it, please.”

She nodded. “You can stop at any time,” she reminded him.

Bucky nodded, thinking about how to begin. Christina had asked him what happened after he recovered from his injuries after he fell from the train in 1945. That period of time was an awkward blur, presumably because he was so injured, and he spent much of that time unconscious with no awareness of what was going on around him. People speaking other languages, pain, exhaustion, bright lights, and fear.

He couldn’t say how long it had been after the fall when he finally recovered enough to be aware that he was a captive, locked in a cell surrounded by people speaking either German or Russian. Several months perhaps.

He was given food twice a day, someone would come every third day to allow him to wash himself and clean up after him, and every now and again someone would come and check on the state of his left arm.

“I didn’t lose my arm in the fall,” he told Dr Raynor, “but it was very badly and irreversibly damaged. I couldn’t bend it properly, or make a fist with my hand.” He clenched his gloved metal fingers into a fist as he said this. “I also couldn’t bear any weight with it. It was like I had an arm there, but it was completely useless, it might not have been there at all.”

He’d landed on his left arm, he remembered lying in that position for three days and nights, blood staining the snow beneath him, his entire body broken and in excruciating agony.

“I knew I was a prisoner,” he told her, “but at first I was glad to be alive, some part of me thought I’d been saved. And I figured it wouldn’t be long before I was liberated. I thought Steve would be looking for me. I thought I’d be treated properly as a prisoner of war you know.”

He’d been so foolish. Hadn’t his experience in Krausberg taught him nothing?

“I didn’t know it was Hyrda I was with,” he explained, “and there were many Russians there and they were our allies, so I thought it would be all-right.”

He remembered that phrase that had been spoken to him as he’d been rescued after falling from the train.

 

Alles wird gut. All will be well.

 

“All those thoughts were dashed,” he told her, “the moment Zola walked into the room.”

The moment he saw that man he recognised him. That crazy Swiss doctor from Krausberg who’d shot his head full of electricity and who’d ordered his minions to slice him up, burn him, bleed him, beat him. The man they’d gone to capture which had led to his fall from the train.  

“I knew straight away that something must have gone horrifically wrong,” he said, “for Zola to be there. He was supposed to have been captured.”

He’d given his life to capture Zola. His last memory on that damn train was of Steve being in peril and Bucky rushing forward to save him, and getting blasted out of the train and left for dead. Had that been for nothing?

He remembered the dread and horror he’d felt upon seeing Zola walking into the cell so calmly and casually. He was all smiles and friendliness, asked Bucky how he was feeling, if he was in pain, if he was tired.

 

 

“You speak German don’t you Sergeant?” Zola said, moving from accented English into German when Bucky slowly nodded, still too dumbfounded to say anything.

When he did try to speak his voice came out in a dry rasp, and Zola rushed over, offered him water and helped him to drink it.

“How are you here?” he asked the other man once he recovered his voice, now speaking in German himself. “What happened on the train?”

 

 

“Zola told me he’d got captured,” Bucky told Christina. “He said he’d made a deal with the SSR and was released. Released!”

He’d not believed his ears when Zola had told him this. Even now it still boggled the mind to think that Carter and Phillips allowed this man to walk free.

“I assumed he’d made some deal with them, about the super solder serum,” Bucky said. “The SSR was desperate to make more, and they’d been having difficulty replicating it.”

Bucky had known before the fall that Zola had injected him with the serum while at Krausberg. After being rescued from Krausberg he’d had little memory of what had happened there, but it had all come flooding back the moment he had seen Zola’s photograph the day before they left to apprehend him. He was going to tell Steve everything but he’d fallen from the train before he’d got the opportunity.

 

 

“I know what you did to me,” he told Zola. “I remember everything.”

“I have big plans for you,” Zola told him. “Plans that were put on hold when you were rescued from Krausberg. I’ve spent the last two years trying to get you back, and now you are here, we can continue.”

 

 

 And hadn’t that filled Bucky with dread? The memory of everything that had happened at Krausberg flooded through his brain, and the sheer horror at the realisation that all of this would likely start over again.

“I knew they wanted a controllable super-soldier,” Bucky told Christina. “That’s what everyone wants. An uncontrollable super-soldier is a problematic thing – Zola said that at Krausberg. Even Colonel Phillips said he had no use for an uncontrollable super-soldier; he was endlessly frustrated with Steve for not following orders and doing his own thing. But I wasn’t too worried. I knew it would be Hell but ultimately I knew that I would be rescued, that I could get through it and out the other side, just like last time. And that’s what I told him.”

He knew that Steve would leave no stone unturned looking for him. He knew that as surely as he knew the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And that’s when he’d received the devastating news that Steve was dead.

 

 

“No-one’s looking for you,” Zola said. “You’re dead. And your brother? Steve Rogers, Captain America? He’s dead too.”

Bucky froze, unable to breath, and the world spun as he made sense of the words that Zola had just said to him.

“You’re lying,” he said hesitantly.

“Five days after your fall from the train, he killed Schmidt and himself by crashing his plane somewhere in the Arctic.”

And then he showed Bucky an old newspaper, dated 12^th February 1945. Bucky barely paid attention to the date, as splashed along the front cover was a photograph of Steve, in all his Captain America glory, beneath a heading proclaiming Steve’s selfless sacrifice. Zola offered him the paper but Bucky refused to take it.

Zola shrugged and put it down on the floor next to him.

“There’s a line in here about you too,” Zola said. “Just a line, as you’re not as important of course. But you’re dead too. No-one is looking for you. That is the reality of your situation Sergeant Barnes. You are never leaving this place.”

 

 

“I knew he was telling the truth,” Bucky said. “I knew that I would die there, that I’d never return home. But I also knew one very important thing as well: that I would never give in. I’d never give them what they wanted.”

He let out a contemptuous laugh. “So much for that,” he said scornfully.

 

 

“Better get some rest, Sergeant,” Zola said. “It’s been several months and now you’re ready and recovered enough for us to begin the process.”

“What process?” Bucky asked, feeling cold dread coursing through his entire body.

Zola smiled benevolently, “Why, the process of breaking you, of course,” he said sweetly. And Bucky closed his eyes as memories of Krausberg flooded through his mind.

Zola turned to leave but Bucky stopped him.

“Wait!” he called out, and Zola paused. Bucky did not make eye contact with the man, when he spoke he was staring at the floor. It took every ounce of self-control he had to keep his voice steady and calm.

“Where exactly am I?” he asked.

“Siberia,” came the reply.

A word Bucky echoed in stunned disbelief.

“Siberia?”

Even if people were looking for him, they would never find him. There were no known Hydra bases in Siberia, none of the locations the Howling Commandos were aware of were in Russia at all. The Russians were allies. And then… Several months Zola said it had been. Months.

“And the war?” he asked Zola tentatively. Zola gave him a pitying look.

“The war is over, Sergeant Barnes. And you won. Well,” he amended, “not you personally. Your side won. You, I’m afraid, have lost. Badly.”

It was only when Zola left that Bucky let himself give in to the emotion that had been threatening to overwhelm him while Zola was present. The grief of losing Steve, the horror of his situation, the loss that his family must be feeling, the fear and dread of what was still to come. He’d died to save Steve’s life, but Steve had died anyway. The absolute fool. And here Bucky was. Alone, far from home, in the depths of Siberia, deep underground, and surrounded by enemies intent on hurting him and turning him into something they would use to commit great evil. For he remembered what they tried to do to him in Krausberg; what they had tried to turn him into.

And above all the terrible thought that this was all his fault. Because he’d made one stupid decision after another, and now he was here and Steve was dead. And he cried. He sobbed, and cursed, prayed to a god he didn’t even believe in, and wished himself anywhere else, anywhere other than here. He wished for death. He hurled himself at the cell door, shouting, swearing, and he tore the newspaper to shreds, cursing Steve for being so stupid, for dying, for being so selfless as he always had been... cursing Steve for becoming Captain America in the first place, forcing himself into conflict and war, instead of staying home where he was safe. 

And Bucky knew from this conversation with Zola that this time there would be no escape.

 

 

And he had tried to kill himself. Oh God he had tried. Only to fail, again and again and again.

“There were two other people there who’d been at Krausberg,” he told Christina. “Lukin and this other man Grigorij, both Russians. I didn’t recognise anyone else. Lukin kept moaning about how hard it was to keep me alive, and I was just pleased to be making things difficult for them.”

“How many times do you think you tried to end your life?” she asked him.

Bucky shrugged. “More times than I could count,” he said honestly. “Any opportunity really. I starved myself; I bashed my head against the wall, I used any sharp implements they left in reach. I tried to hang myself once. All for nothing,” he said bitterly. “That damn serum made it so hard for me to just die. It didn’t do anything useful; the process got interrupted in Krausberg so I wasn’t strong enough to fight back and escape, it just made it frustratingly hard for me to die.”

Every moment of his life was agony. He just wanted it to stop but there would be no end, as he was frequently reminded.

 

 

“There’ll be no more of that now, will there Sergeant Barnes?” Lukin asked as Grigorij forced a rope around his head and twisted it, tighter, tighter. Too tight, like a vice. Other men held his arms back as his head was squeeze tighter and tighter… and, oh God, it hurt, it hurt so much. And those screams… were they really him? Surely he couldn’t make such noises?

And then… relief. Blessed relief as the rope slackened and he sagged into someone’s arms, sobbing, his hands going up to remove the rope from his head.

“There will be no escape for you. Even the release of death shall be denied you. Do you understand? Say it!” Lukin demanded.

But he could barely understand the words being said, and he didn’t answer and then the rope was round his head again, being twisted and then he responded, saying anything they wanted him to say.

“I understand!” he burst out, and was that really him speaking, debasing himself in such a way?  Surely not. Surely he’d not be so pathetic… but it was… it was his voice… “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I promise.”

And the rope was removed again and he felt so grateful for that. Tears, blood, snot, sweat, streamed down his face, into his hair. Hair that was too long, too greasy and unkempt.

Lukin spat on him. “Look at you, you’re a disgrace! What would your Captain say if he could see you now? Do you think he’d ever behave in such a manner? He’d never have given up like you. He would never have allowed this to happen to him. No. You’re a failure Mr Barnes. Failed your family, your country, yourself, and him. Failed everyone. It’s all you’ve ever done.”

And that feeling of shame, because he knew Lukin was right.

 

 

 “You starved yourself?” Christina asked him.

“Lukin was messing with my food,” Bucky told her. “He did stuff to it, it made me sick. So I tried to stop eating. They took away the option.”

They’d force fed him, shoving a tube down his throat.

“Zola kept arguing with Lukin that he was messing with my head too much,” Bucky said. “Lukin would play loud noises, music, on the speaker so I couldn’t sleep, and other things too like that.”

He sighed as he realised something. “I suppose you were right,” he muttered, “about my eating issues being linked to this time. That’s probably the main reason why I struggle with food. I always have, since then. Even decades years later Hydra never knew how to feed me because I couldn’t keep anything down, so they stopped bothering.”

They’d just tube-fed him enough to keep him alive, but it wasn’t enough to really build up his strength. He was always strong for a human, but weak for a super-soldier. Sam had said Steve ate around 10,000 calories a day. No wonder Steve had been so strong.

“I thought that would be the case,” Christina said softly. “I believe many of your self-harming behaviours are linked to this time. That’s why I felt we needed to talk about this.”

“But what I was doing was working,” Bucky said, feeling somewhat triumphant. “I was causing both of them incredible annoyance, because it wasn’t progressing as they expected. And they argued constantly. It almost made it all worth it just to see them fail. They wanted to break me so they could control me, and then power up the serum. They couldn’t risk activating the serum properly while I was in a state that I could fight back, but they also couldn’t use the memory suppressing machine while I was a normal human without killing me. They were stuck. I knew it. They knew it.”

He smiled at the thought of how much he’d frustrated them during that time. Months of torture, sleep deprivation, starvation and suicide attempts, and he’d persevered through it all.

But then his face fell as he remembered what happened next. The beginning of the end.

“That’s when they brought him in,” Bucky said. He didn’t want to say the man’s name. Just thinking of that man created revulsion within him, self-disgust, and embarrassment.

Christina knew who he was referring to. “You mean Fennhoff,” she said, “who you mentioned on Friday.”

Bucky nodded, his throat tightening, and making it impossible to speak for a few moments. He sat up straight for the first time since starting to talk, and reached for his glass of water. The water spilled as he drank, his hand shook so much – he should have used the left. A metal arm never quivers with nervousness or shakes from fear.

He then noticed that his leg too was shaking.

“I want to go out and have a smoke,” he told her, “but I’m worried that if I leave and come back I won’t be able to continue.”

“You don’t have to continue,” she reminded him. “You’ve shared plenty.”

Bucky shook his head. He’d always been of the view that once you started something, you had to finish it. And he was resolved now.

Christina shoved her empty coffee mug towards him, told him he could use it as an ashtray.

“You can smoke in here just this once,” she said.

A few moments later Bucky was leaning back on against the cushions once more, a cigarette held loosely in the fingers of his right hand, as he prepared himself to continue. To talk about the man who haunted him more than any other.

Fennhoff had appeared about a year after his arrival in Siberia. Bucky wasn’t clear on the exact dates, he supposed they might be in the files, but Christina could figure all that out later. He didn’t care when exactly things happened.

Zola had vanished for a couple of weeks and returned with the man.

 

 

“My old colleague Johann Fennhoff,” Zola had introduced him. “On loan from the SSR - your old friends and comrades. We’ve got a deal worked out.”

 

 

Oh the horrific irony inherent in that. Bucky had often been wondering what Zola had told Carter and Phillips, who were in charge of the SSR then (now SHIELD), and what Zola had given them in return. Steve would have turned in his grave to think of either of those two people aiding Zola in any way, even if they did not know the full details of what he was doing.

 

“He…” Bucky began, but his voice failed him once again. It was the way Christina was looking at him, so attentive and patient with a face of carefully schooled neutrality: it was putting him off. He lifted his legs up onto the sofa and reclined on it, his head resting on the arm of the sofa and his legs stretched out so he was staring at the ceiling. That was better. He could almost pretend he was talking to himself. And he would continue. He had to continue, in order to be well. That’s what Christina said.

Christina provided no objection his change in position on the sofa, and so he continued.              

“I never knew anything about him,” he said resuming his eye contact with the ceiling. “He just appeared one day. He had a different method of trying to break me down to the point of compliance. It wasn’t about pain or deprivation which is what Lukin was trying to do. It was more about…” he struggled to find the words to describe what he had experienced under Fenhoff’s supervision, “messing with my head,” he said. “He made me think things were my choice when they weren’t. Made me doubt myself. I got confused, and I forgot things even when they weren’t zapping my brain. I was so confused all the time. He could tell me the sky was green and I would have believed him.”

He paused and turned his head so he could meet her eyes briefly.

“Does that make sense?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Sounds like gas-lighting,” she said. “Making you question your reality, and what you know to be true.”

Bucky had never heard of it.

“I suppose so,” he said.

“What else did he do?” she asked him.

To his dismay he felt his eyes water, and he shook his head and took a long drag on his cigarette to play for time.

“It this when you experienced sexual abuse?” Dr Raynor asked him, forcing the topic out into conversation, and saying the words for him, for which he was grateful as this meant he himself didn’t have to.

Bucky turned his head towards the back of the sofa, and covered his face with his left arm.

“The way he did things,” Bucky said, his voice slightly muffled due to his arm partly covering his mouth, “it was… he made me feel I was choosing to do these things. There were always two guards. One of them was called Grigorij, I don’t know the other. And it was them who did it all. And it was nearly every day. And I always fought back and he would say such awful and confusing things.”

 

-----

 

“You fighting back just makes it last longer, you must like it very much to want it to last longer,”

Or

“This is what you like doing, isn’t it? Sleeping with men? What would your family say if they could see you now?”

He had no idea where they’d got that information that he liked men. He assumed he must have given it away during one of the torture sessions.

There he was pathetically scrabbling against the floor with his weak and useless arm with his good arm pinned under-him and arms on his shoulders pinning him down while a man, usually Grigorij but sometimes others, used him.

 

 

“And when I stopped fighting back it would be even worse in a way, because he made it out like I wanted it to happen.”

 

 

The times he didn’t struggle, just lay there flat with his cheek against the floor, staring blankly ahead…

“Such a good decision,” Fennhoff said, “I knew this was what you wanted. You enjoy this, don’t you?”

 

 

“It’s like I couldn’t do anything the right way,” Bucky said, his face still buried in his arm, “Whether I fought or didn’t it always ended up being used against me.”

There were times he’d fought tooth and nail against them, even with his useless left arm. Shouting curses and obscenities in German and in English as he railed against them, he’d spat at them, kicked them, bitten them, made it as hard for them as possible. But then there were times he’d just lain there and let them get on with it. But he never once begged. He never once pleaded with them to stop. He felt some pride for that, at least, that he’d not debased himself in such a way as to resort to begging.

“Anything I did got twisted around,” he continued. “Everything I said. It just made things worse. One day…” He suddenly heaved, his lungs desperate for air, lurching forward and taking several deep breaths in succession.

“James,” Christina said carefully.

“Don’t you dare!” Bucky declared in warning. “Don’t you dare stop me!” He voice shook but he continued on, pointing his forefinger in her direction. “You asked for this! You brought this up! This is what you wanted to know when you asked me what my dream was about.”

“This is what you dreamt about on Friday night,” Christina realised.

He shoved his cigarette butt into the coffee mug and lit another.  His eyes were damp, but he was holding back tears, thank God. He really didn’t want to cry in front of her. He’d never yet actually cried in front of her, though he’d come close at times, and he didn’t want that to change. She pushed the box of tissues on the table between them a little closer towards him which he ignored as he wasn’t going to cry goddammit!

He closed his eyes so he could get the next sentence out, and it poured out of him in a rush.

“One day he asked me if I would rather carry on getting fucked more frequently or if I would rather have it spaced out over longer periods of time, and I just refused to answer because I knew it was a trap and there was no right way to answer the question, and he said my lack of an answer meant I was happy with the status quo and they would gladly accommodate my request to keep it as it was. But actually Soldat,” he didn’t realise he was now quoting Fennhoff himself as the words continued to just pour out of him, now in German, not English, “dies wird öfter geschehen, wie Sie es wünschen. Ihre Weigerung zu antworten sagt mir, was Sie wirklich wollen.”

This will happen more often, as you wish. Your lack of response tells me what you really want.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette, his eyes still closed so he couldn’t see Christina’s expression. He didn’t even care that she probably didn’t understand the German. The gist was there, she could figure it out.

“After a while,” he said bitterly, finally opening his eyes, “I just began to believe that this was what I wanted, because I kept getting told it was.”

 

----

 

My dear friend Johann is a master of mental torture and psychological conditioning. That was how Zola had introduced Fennhoff, at their first meeting. He will make you compliant enough for us to move on to the next phase of our work.

 

 

And by God, Fennhoff knew what he was doing.

“Fennhoff was the one who starting calling me soldat” Bucky said. “He made everyone call me that. Before that they used my name, or called me Sergeant Barnes. I didn’t hear my name again after he arrived. I didn’t hear my name spoken by someone else for decades.”

“De-humanising,” Christina said, “to make you feel less like a person.”

 

 

“Kill the man, keep the soldier,” Fennhoff said

 

 

“But all of that paled in comparison to what came next,” Bucky said, his voice evening out a bit, as he realised he’d got through the hard bit, talking about Grigorij, talking about the rape, and providing the context for his dream and why he’d struggled on Saturday. That part was done with, and he felt strangely relieved to have got it out, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It was horrific but it was done. And now he could continue on with the rest. And then Christina would know everything, and at the end she could deliver her verdict.

Christina appeared to have given up trying to make him stop and carry on another time, she seemed to have accepted that Bucky was going to talk through it all, and she made no protest when he lit himself a third cigarette in order to give him the courage to continue.

“What happened next?” she prompted him as he tapped the cigarette against the side of the coffee mug.

He grinned grimly and took a deep drag on the cigarette, letting the smoke out slowly as he breathed out. He sat back once again and prepared himself to carry on.

“I killed Grigorij,” he said. “And by god it was a satisfying thing to do, slitting that man’s throat and watching him pathetically gasp for breath on the floor as the blood spurted out of him.” He let out a short dark cynical chuckle as he remembered that horrific scene.

“But guess what?” he challenged her.

She didn’t guess, simply waited for him to answer his own question.

He let out a further short, dark laugh.

“It just made things worse.” 

Notes:

I think that in canon Zola remained in the US with the SSR after being captured, but I was minded in the flashback in Winter Soldier that Bucky remembers Zola being there when his arm was being removed, so I decided to just have Zola in Siberia from early on, and have provided an explanation in this chapter as to why Zola was set free after being captured in The First Avenger. There will be more on this later, so if it doesn’t make sense there are still more answers to come…

I want to credit Winter Soldier: The Bitter March comic for the words that Lukin says to Bucky in the torture flashback Failed him, it’s all you’ve ever done. It’s said by someone else in the comic but I needed to put that in this story, so I gave it to Lukin. It’s a fantastic angsty sequence in the comic where Bucky as the Winter Soldier is forced to relive flashbacks to the war and time with Steve by an enemy with mind powers, and it just totally wrecks him.

Chapter 9: After the Fall: Part Two

“After I killed Grigorij, it changed everything,” Bucky told Christina, resuming his reclining position on the sofa, with his legs stretched out.

He felt a bit more relaxed now, he realised. Still a bit tense, but slightly more at ease now he had got through the description of what Grigjorij had done to him, and provided Christina with the explanation of what his dream had been about on Friday night.

And it was in a way cathartic to be talking about this, he realised. He’d not told anyone about these experiences, not a single person. He’d not told the Wakandans, although he had a feeling they knew quite a lot from the red book, and certainly he’d not told Steve. Steve had asked him questions about what had happened after the fall, but Bucky had been deliberately evasive about it. He felt such a deep abiding sense of shame for the things he’d experienced during those early Siberia years that the thought of Steve finding out about any of it was just inconceivable.

“For all that it was satisfying, it was a monumental mistake,” he continued, "killing that man. In that moment I held in my hands the opportunity to end it all right then and there, and I didn’t take it.”

When he first saw the knife that he’d later use to kill Grigorij, he’d thought it was a trap. A test. One of Fennhoff’s little games which were designed to stamp out any hope or optimism he had left. Designed to mess with his mind even more, confuse him, entrap him, make him feel powerless. They’d leave him in a cell with the door open to see if he would try to leave - he made it quite far one time, only to be dragged back. He’d learned enough that day to realise that he was deep deep far underground, and any thoughts of being able to escape were eradicated completely. He’d been severely punished for that attempt.

Or sometimes Fennhoff would ask him ridiculous, nonsensical questions which he couldn’t possibly know the answer to, and he’d be water boarded every time he provided the wrong answer. Pushed to the edge of drowning again and again and again – and when his head was finally raised above the water it took everything he could to just gasp ‘what do you want me to say?’ Only to have his face forced down beneath the water again.

But the day he killed Grigorij was not one of Fennhoff’s traps, it was the one and only occasion in which that man had made a grievous error. No such mistakes had ever happened again. It was Bucky’s one and only chance to end everything and he’d failed to capitalise on it.

That choice he made in that split second, in that brief window in which he held all the power, still played out in his mind as one of his biggest regrets. And ever since he’d regained his memory of it, he’d replayed it over and over in his mind, criticising himself, blaming himself. Regret. And now he would tell Christina and she would finally realise and understand why everything was his fault.

 

 

He sat alone on a thin blanket, huddled in the corner of his cell. They’d stopped chaining him as it had been a long time since he’d attempted to leave, or made any attempts to kill himself. He was thin, dirty, his hair was long and greasy, he wore only trousers and his arms and torso were littered with the evidence of months of harm; harm inflicted upon him by others, but also by himself.

He had no concept of time, no idea how long it had been since he’d been brought here. Time had no meaning here. He was underground; he never even knew if it was day or night. Days merged into one another, and they were all the same.

 

 

“Maybe it was two years, after I woke up in Siberia,” he suggested to Christina. “I really couldn’t tell you.”

“According to the files I saw,” she said, “you killed a man in 1949. I assume it’s the same situation.”

“Is that when that was?” he asked, feeling shocked. Four years since he fell from the train. They’d brought in Fennhoff after a year, so between Fennhoff’s  arrival and killing Grigorij it had been three years? Almost twice as long as he’d thought it’d been.

He really didn’t think it had been that long. Three years of Fennhoff’s torture and psychological games.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and took out another cigarette. His fourth was it? He was going through them at an alarming rate; he was almost concerned he might run out before he had finished talking. Christina didn’t object as he lit it.

“It was unusual for Fennhoff to come to me,” he said. “Usually I got taken to whatever room he’d set aside for our activities. But this day, he came along with Grigorij and some other man whose name I never knew.”

 

 

Bucky watched from his position on the floor as the two guards brought in a little table and two chairs and set them up by the door, and then Fennhoff himself entered and sat down and gestured to Bucky to sit opposite him.

He remembered feeling a sense of impending dread as he watched Fennhoff gesture to the chair and he refused to move.

So Grigorij had grabbed Bucky by his good arm, and forced him over and into the chair. Bucky sat heavily, slouching, with his hair covering his eyes, avoiding looking at any of the three men in the room.

“You look dreadful,” Fennhoff remarked, speaking in German as he always did.

Bucky didn’t answer, but his eyes flickered up as Fennhoff placed something on the table. A pack of cards.

“We’re doing something new today, Soldier,” Fennhoff said, and he waved a hand at Grigorij to get him to move away. Bucky’s eyes flickered over to watch Grigorij as he moved into a position leaning against the wall of the cell, a metal baton spinning in his hands. Bucky couldn’t move his eyes away from the baton; he’d been hit with that more times than he could count.

“Pick the red card,” Fennhoff instructed him. Bucky ignored him, his eyes still focused intently on the spinning baton and the man wielding it. He was expecting the larger man to come forward at any moment, over power him, beat him, use him and he couldn’t drag his eyes away from him.

“If you’re unable to focus,” he heard Fennhoff saying, “we can put this off for another day and return to our usually scheduled activities. It seems you may prefer that?”

 

 

“Usually scheduled activities was the term he used for when he’d let Grigorij and others do whatever they wanted to me,” Bucky explained to Christina as he relayed Fennhoff’s words to her. “So the threat of that got my attention pretty successfully.”

 

 

He turned his attention to the cards that Fennhoff had laid in front of him and jabbed at the red card with the fingers of his right hand.

“Good,” Fennhoff said. “Now the blue,” Bucky did as instructed. Fennhoff put down more cards and continued issuing instructions to Bucky about which ones to touch. Bucky responded on auto-pilot and his eyes wandered back over towards Grigorij, who was spinning his baton and looking far too cheerful. Bucky felt that something awful was about to happen. Why else would this man be here?

Grigorij dropped the baton, and it landed with a heavy metal clunk on the cold, hard cell floor. Cursing, Grigorij bent down to pick it up; Bucky’s eyes following his every movement.

 

 

“And that’s when I saw he had a knife,” Bucky told Christina. “He shouldn’t have had it. It was a rule from the time I kept trying to kill myself. They’d always been so careful not to have sharp items around me when I wasn’t restrained. I think maybe they got complacent. But at the time I thought it was a trap.”

 

 

His eyes rested on the knife and his breath caught for a moment as he saw it, sheathed on Grigorij’s belt.

It’s a trick, he thought. Had to be. They wanted him to go for it, and then he’d be punished. They wanted to see what he would do.

Fennhoff appeared not to have noticed Bucky’s eyes flicker to Grigorij’s knife, and continued issuing instructions to Bucky about what card to pick. Bucky felt his heartbeat pick up as he considered what his next course of action might be. Could he dare? This whole situation was so unusual, so surreal. He couldn’t wrap his head around what Fennhoff was doing and the thought of what might be about to happen was petrifying.

 

 

“It seems like such a weird thing,” Bucky told Christina, “just picking cards. I couldn’t make sense of it, of what he was doing. It was terrifying in how non-threatening it was. I just kept expecting something awful to happen. We were sitting and playing cards,” he let out a short humourless laugh, “and I was petrified.”

 

 

“Blue” Fennhoff instructed. Bucky jabbed his hand towards the blue card without looking; his gaze still fixed on the massive Russian man who was standing by the wall.

“Wrong,” Fennhoff said. And this made Bucky look over in shock; he had touched the blue card, he was certain of it. As soon as his head whipped round to look at the cards, he saw Grigorij move out of the corner of his eye, swing his arm back, baton in his fingers. He had only a moment to prepare himself for the hit that he knew was coming: he braced himself. The hit landed on the side of his head and the force of it spun him off the chair and onto the floor.

Bucky didn’t cry out, he didn’t hold his head in pain. He gave no reaction. That was the best way to manage this. His head throbbed as stars danced across his vision, and he took a moment to compose himself, then pushed himself up and sat back down on the chair. He stared down at the table. His right hand was shaking.

His head continued to throb. He ignored it.

“You need to pay attention,” Fennhoff said. “And Grigorij, don’t hit him on the head again please. It’s too much damage. Somewhere else next time.”

Bucky closed his eyes. The way Fennhoff spoke was deliberate. It had to be. ‘Next time’, he’d said. It put him on edge.

“The green card,” Fennhoff instructed. Bucky looked properly this time and touched the green card.

“Wrong,” Fennhoff said again. Bucky looked up in desperate confusion.

“No,” he protested. He’d definitely touched the right colour.

This time Grigorji whacked him on the back of his head. The force of the hit snapped his head forward and he collided with the table. Again he didn’t react, apart from an involuntary grunt; he pushed himself back up and returned his attention to the cards. His nose was bleeding. And it felt numb. His head throbbed ever harder, and his eyes watered from the pain.

“What did I say?” Fennhoff gently chastised Grigorji. “And now you’ve bruised our handsome soldier’s face. No man will want him now.” The third man in the room snickered. Bucky felt his face redden but he didn’t react. Instead he wiped at his nose with his hand, spreading blood over his face and on his hand, and stared down at the table.

The cards had fallen on the floor when Bucky’s head hit the table. Fennhoff collected them and placed two down on the table. One red, one blue. He directed Bucky’s attention back to the cards and Bucky tried to put the pain aside and focus on the task that was required of him.

“Which is the blue one?” Fennhoff asked.

Bucky hesitantly reached out. And then he stopped, his hand hovering above the blue card as his mind raced to make sense of what had just happened. He had chosen correctly the last two times and been told he was wrong and then there had been consequences. He couldn’t risk being wrong again. He withdrew his hand.

“Choose,” Fennhoff ordered. Bucky felt terrified, paralysed with fear as he knew that whatever he chose it would be the wrong choice. He stared at Fennhoff, wide-eyed, his mind a complete blank, unable to follow the instruction he had been given, unable to do anything.

Bucky shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, and to his horror he heard his own voice waver as he spoke. “I don’t which one to choose.”

“The blue one,” Fennhoff explained slowly, like he was speaking to a child.

Bucky shook his head desperately. “I don’t know which one,” he said, his shaking and higher pitched voice giving away his panic. “Tell me which one it is.”

 

 

“Do you know what he said next?” Bucky asked Christina. He didn’t wait for her to guess.

“He said: das ist die richtige Antwort. – that is the right answer,” Bucky shook his head in bemusement.

“I see,” Christina said slowly.

“Do you?” Bucky asked her. “Because I still can’t really wrap my head around what he was doing. Let me tell you what he did next, maybe you can explain it to me.”

 

 

“That’s the right answer,” Fennhoff said. He then picked up the red card. “This is blue,” he said. And then he picked up the blue, calling it red. Bucky had never felt more confused in his entire life. Nor had he ever felt this terrified. He nodded.

This time when Fennhoff told him to touch the blue card, after several seconds of internal agonising, he reached out a shaky hand and pointed at the red one. He winced, expecting punishment, but none came. Fennhoff instead smiled and put down another card. This one was yellow, but he said it was green. Bucky no longer cared what the colours were. He was doing the right thing, and nothing bad was happening. That was all that mattered.

 

 

“Well?” Bucky asked Christina. “It’s odd isn’t it? Was he actually trying to do something, or was he just messing with my head again?”

“I think this was a deliberate attempt,” she said after thinking for a moment, “to get you questioning your reality. I used a word earlier- gaslighting, that’s what that is - making you doubt yourself, doubt your own knowledge and understanding. And it makes you more reliant on the other person. It’s commonly found in abusive relationships. It’s about control. And yes, also mind games: constant changing of the rules, keeping you anxious and fearful, confused and disoriented. Walking on eggshells is how some people describe it: having to modify your own behaviour and responses, because you fear the reactions of the other person.’

Bucky considered this, it sounded about right. Confused and fearful was a good way to describe the way Fennhoff usually made him feel.

 

 

Fennhoff kept producing more cards of different colours and naming them incorrectly. Bucky found himself struggling to remember which ones were supposed to be which as he changed them around constantly. Blue became red, became pink, became green and there were so many of them.

And then he got one wrong again, and he knew as soon as he touched the brown card that he’d chosen wrong. Brown was now green, and Fennhoff has asked him to choose the black card, which was now the yellow one.

He quickly touched the correct card, hoping the other man was perhaps distracted, but no such luck. Bucky’s eyes flickered up to Fennhoff’s face as he held his breath to see if Fennhoff would allow this error. 

Fennhoff tutted, rising to his feet. “I guess you’re just not up to this today,” he said. “We’ll stick to the usual programme for the time being.”

In an instant Bucky launched himself to his feet, the chair clattering to the floor behind him, and he backed away to the far wall of the cell. He knew what would be coming next, and he’d be damned if he didn’t fight back today and make it as difficult for them as possible.

 “He’s all yours,” Fennhoff said to the other two men, and he left the room.

Grigorij approached, and in that moment Bucky remembered the knife.

All thoughts that the knife could be a trap left him; all he could think was that the knife was there and if he could get his hands on it, he could use it.

As Grigorij manhandled him, intending to shove him against the wall, Bucky ducked and launched himself towards the knife. It slid out of the sheath so easily, and it was in his hand. His right hand. The arm that worked.

And he wavered. For a split second he paused, and then he made a choice.

 

 

“I used my precious single opportunity,” Bucky said his voice heavy with resentment, “to get revenge and I killed Grigorij. I should have killed myself.”

He balled his hands into fists as his anger and shame from this situation flashed back into his mind, as he remembered that one fucking moment where once again he’d made the wrong decision.

“It would have been so easy,” he said regretfully, “to have slit my own throat. I had the will. I would have done it. I could have done it.” He realised that his voice had taken on a pleading tone, like he was trying to convince her that he would have had the ability to kill himself in that moment, if he’d only made the right decision.

“I believe you,” Christina said softly.

 

 

Blood gushed and the man fell to the floor, hands grasping at his throat. But he was as good as dead, there was no chance for him now. Bucky felt a thrill of satisfaction rush through him as he watched one of his tormentors writhing on the floor as his life drained out of him. Bucky then shifted the knife in his hand so he could turn it on himself, and that’s what he was going to do, but suddenly the other man came out of nowhere. He’d forgotten about the other man.

Bucky felt himself being shoved backwards, hard, and the knife was wrenched from his hand. And he roared in his pain and his anger as his arm was wrenched back behind him as the other man tried to overpower him. Bucky ignored the pain and threw himself at his attacker. It was just the two of them, no-one else had come in, and he could get the knife back.

He must get the knife back.

He was screaming, shouting, yelling. He didn’t even know what languages he was cursing in, every foul word he knew in every language he could speak poured out of him as he violently attacked the other man.

 

 

“I went absolutely mental," Bucky told Christina, "throwing myself at him trying to get that knife back. I was screaming, shouting. I was desperate."

“Svoloch’,” he remembered, “Arschloch. Pizda. I won’t translate that one,” he smiled humourlessly, reliving the feelings of utter desperation he’d felt as he’d fought so hard to reclaim that knife and end his life.

 

 

 “Give me the fucking knife,” he yelled. He didn’t know if he was speaking German or English. Some Russian words might have slipped out as well, that he’d picked up over the years of being here from Lukin and Grigorij.  

“You bastard, give me the knife. Kill me you arsehole, fucking kill me! Kill me!”

He gripped the sharp end of the knife with his right hand, attempted to pull it out of the other man’s hand. He didn’t care that it was cutting into his fist, barely noticed. Blood everywhere. He skidded on Grigorij's blood which was staining the floor and almost tripped over the man's now dead body.

He might have managed to reclaim the knife had he still had two good arms. But he didn’t. His right hand was tight around the blade of the knife and he couldn’t use the left to keep himself from being overpowered.

And he ran out of time.

More men ran into the room, and he was pulled back. The knife slipped through his fingers. He was shouting, swearing, lashing out. He didn’t care, anymore. He didn’t care. He needed this to be over, he needed this to stop.

They’d overpowered him, of course. There were three of them, and he was weak with only one decent arm.

His head crashed against the wall of the cell, and he passed out.

 

 

“I fucked up,” Bucky said bitterly, feeling the keen sting of failure. “I could have ended everything right then and there, and prevented everything else that then happened. I never got the opportunity again. That was the last…” he choked on his words and fell silent.

“You were acting upon instinct,” Christina said, “under an incredible amount of stress. Do you really think you could have done anything else in such circumstances?”

“I should have done,” Bucky replied. “My entire life has just been one mistake after another. A litany of poor decision making spanning one hundred years. And that one moment where I decided to kill Grigorij rather than myself was quite possibly the last moment I ever had to change things. Because I wasn’t myself after what happened next. Killing Grigorij changed everything. It was the beginning of the end.”

 

 

He woke up, sometime later, groggy and in pain, to find himself alone in a blindingly white room. Everything in the room was white. A white bucket to relieve himself in, a white blanket. There was nothing else there. He realised, shocked, that even his clothes were white. And he was clean. All the grime, sweat and blood had been washed off. His right hand was bandaged from where it had been lacerated by the knife. His head still ached from the baton and as he raised a hand to the source of the pain, he realised that his head had been completely shaved.

The door was white, and it fitted securely in its frame, and the ceiling also was white. Light came from somewhere but he couldn’t see where. There was no window, so he assumed he was still underground.

What fresh hell was this? He wondered as he surveyed his new surroundings.

 

 

“The room was so tiny,” Bucky said, “that I could stand in the centre of the room, reach out with my arms, and touch both sides at once.”

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and raised out his arms in demonstration.

“There was just enough room for me to lie down,” he said, as he slumped back down again against the cushions, “and the entire room was white. It was so... unusual, and odd. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

He paused and licked his lips. “I think that room was the nail in my coffin,” he said. “I think it drove me crazy.”

“A White Room,” Christina said. “Yes, I’ve heard of such a thing.”

“It’s a thing?” Bucky asked her in disbelief.

“It’s been used in Iran,” she told him. “White Room torture. It’s a form of psychological torture, using sensory deprivation and isolation.”

Bucky nodded, that sounded about right.

“I was left alone for so long,” he told her. “One man came by occasionally to keep me alive, clean me up, shave my hair off, but he never spoke to me. And I was just left there. And everything was always white. The man who came in, even he was dressed in white. Even the fucking jug they brought my water in was white.”

One time he’d clawed at his left arm with his finger nails, and he stained his white clothes with blood just to see a bit of colour. They’d taken his clothes away and cut his nails so short that it hurt. When his clothes were finally returned to him he’d not tried that again.

Bucky felt his eyes sting and he grabbed his glass of water and sipped at it, trying to appear nonchalant as he composed himself. The White Room was awful. And he was there for so long. He had no idea how long. And not a single person spoke to him for such a long time. It was a lonely, endless emptiness, punctuated only by the occasional visits from the guard dressed all in white, who never said a word and just carried out his duties in complete silence.

“I don’t think I was myself when I came out of that room,” he said. “I can’t even really explain it but it broke me in a way nothing else did.”

Christina nodded. “What is known of White Room torture,” she explained, “is that people who have experienced it were affected for decades afterwards. People couldn’t remember the names of their parents, their children; it affected their sense of self.”

Bucky knew that the White Room had driven him insane, he knew it. The loneliness, the isolation, the desperation to hear another human voice. And then afterwards, he could barely remember his own name. Fennhoff and the room had taken away his identity and personality even before they’d used the Memory Suppressing Machine. It erased him.

He remembered lying there, surrounded by white, with his eyes pressed tightly closed, wishing himself anywhere else.

He’d had hallucinations. His mother, Steve, his sisters. They visited him, talked to him, told him he deserved this, that this was all his fault. It was his fault that Steve had died; it was his fault he was here in the first place.

Sometimes he dreamt of them: his mother embracing him, Steve clapping him on the back, jokes and laughter with his sisters, his father shaking his hand. Those were the times that he would wake up convinced that he had somehow got a message across to them, that someone would be coming to rescue him. And then he would remember the horrible truth that the world thought he was dead and no-one would ever be coming for him. This was his life now, and there was no end in sight.

It was hell. And it was endless. And there was nothing he could do to make it stop. The endless hours of nothingness that stretched before him and behind him.

“Fennhoff gave me the opportunity to leave that room,” he said, “and I refused at first. He said I needed to promise to behave and he would let me leave.”

 

 

Will you comply?

 

 

And he’d shaken his head; at that point there was still enough of himself there to say no. There was just enough still in him to rebel, and to make things as difficult as possible for them as he could. To be disruptive.

He so desperately wanted to leave the room, to be among people who would speak to him, to feel something over than the endless loneliness, even if it were pain. He’d almost forgotten why he was trying to hold out, but at that point he hadn’t yet forgotten himself completely. So he'd refused to comply.

But Fennhoff hadn’t been bothered by this last display of rebellion.

 

 

No matter, we have time. You will eventually. There is only one ending here. The only question is how long it will take us to get there.

 

 

And then Bucky had flung himself at the door once Fennhoff had locked it behind him and battered at it with his useless arm.

 

 

I’ll not comply. I’ll not…

 

 

“But eventually I capitulated,” Bucky said. “I just couldn’t stay in that room any longer. I completely forgot why I was holding out. Ages later, and I couldn’t tell you how long it was, Fennhoff came again to the room and he said, “What do you have to tell me this time, soldier?” He took a deep breath.

“That’s when I first said the words that I was ready to comply. And he praised me for making the right choice.”

 

 

You’ve done so well

 

 

Remembering the praise that Fennhoff had lavished upon him after he’d promised to behave made him feel sick.

“I wasn’t the same person after that,” Bucky said. “No more attempts to escape or kill myself. No more overt acts of defiance. I stopped thinking about home, my family and friends, and everything that had come before. It was like there was nothing else left in the world: it was just me and them and this Siberian Hell.”

 

 

Notes:

White Room Torture is actually a real thing, as Dr Raynor explains in this chapter. I was googling about the effects of isolation on people when I was trying to work out what horrible things I was going to put Bucky through, and I came across an article about a journalist who had been contained in a White Room in Iran, and it detailed the impact it had on him and his sense of self. Even food would be white, and the room would be soundproofed and people were kept in complete isolation, and people kept in this way forgot names of family members, had hallucinations, lost themselves, and this had long lasting effects that could last for decades. I just knew that this was what needed to happen to Bucky in this story. It seemed like the perfect way to have Fennhoff break him.

Also re. Bucky's arm - I just couldn't work out how he might have lost his arm in the fall. And it got me really stuck, so I decided that his arm was just very damaged and got removed later, as who wants a super soldier with an arm that doesn't work properly? It also seemed fitting that this would be yet another violent act forced upon him - having his arm removed and replaced against his wishes in order to make him a better soldier for Hydra.

By the way, one more chapter to go and then we see Sam again (chapter 11). I know we aren't getting much of the two together in Act One (as per the TV show, they are not really on speaking terms at this point) but when we get to Act Two he's in practically every chapter, I promise.

Chapter 10: After the Fall: Part Three

Notes:

There is a quote in this chapter which I’ve taken from Captain America: Winter Soldier Comic by Brubaker. Its Zola’s 'twisted joke' sentence. It’s an amalgamation of two quotes from the comic said by two different characters, and it’s paraphrased to make it fit this story better.

No content warnings for this chapter. It’s just very sad.

After the Fall: Part Three

 

“Things changed after I came out of the White Room,” Bucky said, thinking back. “I wasn’t causing any more trouble, so the focus of the work changed with me. They spent a lot of time looking at my arm, trying to work out whether it would fix itself when they activated the serum, or trying to figure out what should be done with it.”

He stared down at his left arm, covered in a long sleeve, the metal fingers hidden behind thick gloves. He didn’t hate this arm as much as he had the old one – this one had come from Wakanda, and had positive associations, but he still loathed it because of the constant reminder that it gave him about who he’d been, and the things he had done.

“I remember them talking about it as if I wasn’t even there,” he said. “And when they started talking about removing it I remember just screaming inside my head that I didn’t want that. My arm was useless yes, but it was still there, and it was my arm. I didn’t want them to mess with it.”

“But they didn’t care about what you wanted,” Christina said, “they only cared about what use they could have for you.”

Bucky nodded. “Who wants a super-soldier with a gimpy arm?” he asked rhetorically. “But I never spoke up. It didn’t occur to me to speak up, I knew they wouldn’t listen. I knew it would just cause trouble. I just let it all waft over me as they made all the decisions.”

He paused. He didn’t really know how to properly describe the state of his mind after the White Room. It was like he was present without really being there, in a state of just existing. Never questioning anything, just letting things happen around him.

“Fennhoff was fascinated by what I could and couldn’t remember,” he said. “It’s odd. I still had memories, they’d not been taken away from me at that point, but it’s like they were very hard to reach. I could remember things if prompted and if I concentrated very hard, but most of the time it was like I didn’t have any history at all.”

“Perhaps your brain was trying to protect you by locking them away,” Christina suggested. “Memories can bring such pain, and you’d suffered a lot by that point. Your brain would be in a constant state of just trying to survive.”

“He asked me so many questions over and over again, trying to see what I could and couldn’t remember,” Bucky recalled. “I just remember feeling so confused all the time. And I was so well-behaved,” his voice grew hard as he thought about how obedient and compliant he’d been at that time. “It’s absolutely sickening. But I guess that was the outcome of being the White Room for so long, as you said.”

“Do you know how long you were kept in there?” she asked him.

“I’ve no idea how long I was in there,” he replied. “And I don’t want to know,” he added quickly, just in case Christina knew from those documents she’d been given.

“There’s not that level of detail,” she said. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you, even if you wanted to know.”

Bucky had one date, but it was some time after he’d been released from the White Room, and he’d had no ability to keep track of the passing of time. Days, weeks, months, years all merged into one another with no markers to help him make sense of when he was. But there was one day where he’d been expressly told what the date was.

It was quite some time after the White Room, several months maybe, and he’d been good, doing as was told, following instructions, not causing any trouble, and Zola and Fennhoff were both happy with the progress that was now being made. As a result of this he’d finally been allowed to be taken up in the lift and to leave the underground rooms behind him, for the first time since he’d arrived here sometime in 1945.

 

10^th March 1951

 A guard came to collect him. Only one guard now, because he had been so well behaved for so long. He was taken to get cleaned up. A rare shower, new clothes, shave and his hair trimmed slightly. His nails were clipped painfully short as they always were, as he was still liable to claw at himself sometimes. He didn’t do it deliberately; it was just something that happened sometimes whenever he experience intense emotions that he couldn’t express in any other way than self-inflicted pain. He couldn’t help it and Fennhoff had long since stopped trying to punish him for it as the punishment didn’t work, so instead they routinely cut his nails.

 He let himself be manhandled around as he always did.

Then Fennhoff had come to collect him and taken him to the lift. They went up. All the way up, to the top. He was vaguely aware that he’d never been up in the lift before; he’d forgotten that there was more to the world than the few rooms he had access to down here.

When the lift reached the top Fennhoff led him through some dark passageways and gestured him in to a new cell.

“Your new home,” he said. He spoke German, they all spoke either German or Russian around him now, and he’d respond in kind. His eyes panned around the room that he’d been led to. There was actually a bed (if it could be called that – it was pretty much just a metal frame) with blankets. That was new. He’d spent his entire time here just lying on the floor. There was also a sink, and an actual toilet that looked like it flushed.

Luxuries.

Bucky however didn’t pay much attention to the objects in the room. His sight was fixated on a small sliver of light streaming through the tiny barred window in the upper corner of the small room. He stared at it, utterly transfixed. He didn’t think he had ever seen anything more beautiful than that tiny stream of sunlight.

“Well,” Fennhoff said, clapping Bucky on the back and pushing him forward into the room, “we got here eventually. Moving on to the next phase – though you did make it difficult getting us here.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said automatically, not turning his head from the small stream of sunlight. This was the right thing to say. He knew it was the right thing to say. But it felt wrong saying it, although he couldn’t think why.

Fennhoff reached over and stroked Bucky’s cheek with a finger. “Ah Soldier,” he said, “you’re worth all this trouble.”

Bucky wanted to flinch, and dimly the thought came to him why does everyone always have to touch me? But he didn’t react, because he knew that would cause trouble.

Just be docile. Don’t think, don’t feel. Don’t do or say anything. Just let things happen.

There was screaming in his head. There was always screaming in his head.

He remained staring up at the tiny window.

Fennhoff followed his gaze.

“It’s been some time since you’ve seen the sun hasn’t it?” he asked, his voice soft, almost sounding apologetic. “I forgot. Do you want to go outside?”

Bucky felt himself tense. This was a direct question and he knew he had to answer it. But as always there was a correct response and an incorrect response, and he knew deep in his bones that he mustn’t get the answer wrong.

“I don’t want anything,” he said quietly, ducking his head so the hair fell in front of his eyes.

“Correct answer,” Fennhoff said, pushing Bucky’s hair back behind his ears. Bucky felt himself quiver at the touch.

“I have something for you,” Fennhoff said. “Wait here.”

He left the room. Bucky was dimly aware that the cell door was left open.  He ignored it and returned his attention back to that small sliver of sunlight.

Fennhoff returned with a newspaper clutched in his hands.

“It’s from yesterday,” he said, holding it out towards Bucky, so that the front page was facing him. Bucky stared blankly at it, looking without really seeing. 

“Does the date mean anything to you?” Fennhoff asked. Bucky focused his attention.

9^th March 1951.

He had no idea. He paused, his brain whirring as he tried to make sense of what was written in front him, on the verge of panic as he wanted to say the right thing, give the right answer, but he had no idea what that would be.

“It’s not a trick question, Soldier” Fennhoff said. “Just answer it.”

All questions were traps; he’d learned that by now. But it would be worse to stay silent.

Bucky looked again, and this time focused his mind on the task at hand.

 “It’s been six years,” he said quietly. He didn’t know how he knew that, but it was the first thought that entered his mind when he saw that date. Six years since when?

There was a time before this

His mind drifted back to the time before. There had been a time before hadn’t there?  But he didn’t like to think of it, because that’s when all those strong feelings would come and overwhelm him, and Fennhoff didn’t like it when that happened.

“Yes,” the other man said. “Six years. Hasn’t the time gone quickly?” he asked nostalgically. “But this is yesterday’s paper. Today’s date is the 10^th March. That’s the day you were born wasn’t it?”

Bucky considered this. Yes, he supposed it was. He didn’t really think about such things anymore. He took each day as it came, surviving. Nothing else ever really entered his mind.

“Do you know how old you are today?” Fennhoff asked him.

Bucky wanted to scream, and inside his head the screaming became louder. But outwardly he remained calm. Somehow he knew the answer to this question.

 “I’m 34,” he murmured. He looked again at the paper in Fennhoff’s hands. Was it really his birthday today?

“As it is a special day for you,” Fennhoff was saying, “we’re giving you the day off, to relax in your more comfortable living arrangements, before we start the next phase of your, ah, conditioning.”

Bucky felt that what Fennhoff was saying must be important but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“There’s still a lot to be getting on with,” Fennhoff continued. “It’s time to activate the serum and fix the problem of your arm, your memories, and so forth,” he waved a hand casually as if it didn’t matter. “But now we’ve sorted out your little compliance issue I believe we will quickly get to the end goal. You’ll be good won’t you?”

Bucky nodded. Dimly in the back of his mind he remembered being non-compliant. It hadn’t ended well. He looked at the newspaper, something was causing him to feel confused about it and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“This is in English,” he said to Fennhoff, pointing at it. “I didn’t know I spoke…” his words trailed off. What was he saying? Of course he spoke English. Why had he thought that he didn’t?

“English is your first language, Soldier,” Fennhoff said casually. “Did you forget?”

Bucky frowned. “I got confused,” he said. Then slightly panicked in case that wasn’t allowed he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Let’s continue exploring this,” Fennhoff said, sounding genuinely interested. “Do you remember where you were born?” he asked. Bucky chewed his bottom lip anxiously. This felt like a test and he didn’t know what kind of answer to give. He opted to remain silent.

“You should remember,” Fennhoff said. “We’ve not affected your memory permanently yet. Any memory loss is short term. Try to think, Soldier. What’s your name?”

Bucky’s heart started beating really fast as his mind raced.

How does one forget one’s own name?

He felt frozen to the spot; his breathing paused as he searched his mind for the answer.

And there was that emotion again, that sense of sorrow and loss, strong and overwhelming and that screaming was so loud now in his head, he was surprised he could even hear Fennhoff’s words. His breath faltered and he felt his eyes water. He wanted to put his hands over his ears and shout and scream himself; to drown out that endless cacophony of noise inside his head. He willed himself to focus.

 There was a name; he knew there was a name. It was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

“You can answer this,” Fennhoff said. “It’s allowed.”

And suddenly it came to him; along with a surge of relief that, yes, he could remember this, that he did have a name. That he was in fact a person.

“My name’s James,” he said, and he couldn’t stop his voice from quivering as he said this. And something inside him broke, because while he knew he was correct, that this was indeed his name and he was glad to have remembered it, that relief came along with the dreadful thought that he had forgotten his own name. How do you forget your own name?

What else had he forgotten?

And also there was this alarming thought that while his name was indeed James, something felt wrong about it. Really wrong. Like something was missing, something important. It was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t reach it. Some key part of him was absent, lost, and he couldn’t reclaim it.

And he felt desperately sad for reasons he couldn’t even begin to make sense of.

“Yes,” Fennhoff told him, “that’s right. Don’t worry about having forgotten. You’ll forget again really soon. Properly this time. You’ll forget everything and everyone.”

Bucky stared blankly down at the newspaper and he felt a tear slip down his cheek as Fennhoff spoke. The other man wiped it away for him.  

“I wonder if your family are finished grieving for you yet?” Fennhoff said casually, as if he were remarking upon the weather. “Maybe they think you’re still alive. You know you will never see them again.”

Yes, Bucky thought, he had a family, although he couldn’t properly recall who they were, but he must have one.

His mind flashed to his family, miles and years away.

Perhaps they were thinking of him right now. Right in this very moment as he was thinking of them.

He looked back up at the window at the small stream of sunlight – the first natural light he’d seen in six years. He thought of his mother looking out at the same sun. He couldn’t picture her, but he knew she must exist. This was his birthday, surely his mother would be thinking of him on his birthday.

 Was there anyone else? He thought there must be. Back home.

Home.

Brooklyn, that’s where he was from. It flashed into his mind just as his name had earlier along with the same overpowering feeling of loss and sadness. He knew with an unwavering and terrifying certainty that he’d never see home again.

“And you will live long after they are dead,” Fennhoff continued, “but you won’t remember them.”

Bucky kept his eyes glued on the newspaper, remaining unmoved and silent as tears started to fall in earnest now.

Evidentially he was doing the right thing as Fennhoff nodded and clapped him on the back again.

“You can keep the newspaper, Soldier,” he said. “Read it! See how the world is moving along without you in it.”

He shoved the paper into Bucky’s hands and removed himself from the room, whistling cheerfully as he left.

Bucky didn’t read the paper. He dropped it onto the floor and sank slowly down onto the bed and stroked the blankets. They were soft. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d touched something soft.

He wiped away his tears and then turned his gaze back to the window and watched the sun until it set. Once again Fennhoff had left the door open, but again it never occurred to him to attempt to leave. He was too transfixed on the sun: the first sunlight in six years, and he watched it slowly pass away until he was left in darkness.

Phase one had ended. It had taken six years, but that part was over.

 

Present Day

 

 “I think that’s the point where they realised they could safely move on,” Bucky said. “It makes sense, what you said about the White Room. It really did make me lose myself.”

Bucky suddenly felt tired, incredibly drained. It felt as if all energy had been sapped from him. This was all too much, and he wasn’t sure he could continue for much longer. He realised suddenly that he had been here and talking about these things for just over two hours.

This was exhausting. No wonder Christina had warned him at the start about talking about this all in one go, he thought somewhat regretfully. But he could quickly speed through the rest and maybe she would be content with that.

“The rest of what happened is just a blur really,” he said. “I can’t remember the order things happened in. They started the electric shocks, properly removing my memories for good; they activated the serum, they replaced my arm, and all the other things they did to my head as well.”

He knew they must have done the arm after the serum was activated as Shuri had told him that he’d never have survived such a procedure as a normal human, and certainly wouldn’t have be able to manage the arm. She’d been horrified at the utter mess they’d made of his arm and the connections it had to his body and his brain. She’d sorted it out, of course. The Vibranium arm was better. Much better.

The red notebook appeared at some point then as well. The red notebook with the black star on it. Steve had asked about it in 2016 in Berlin.

What’s in the red book? Steve had asked.

 Everything Bucky had replied.

The red book was basically his instruction manual and it was started sometime in the early 1950s.

There had always been something instinctual in him about the red notebook. Even though he never remembered anything because they routinely wiped him, he always associated the red book with pain. Whenever it appeared he always knew that something horrible would be sure to follow. Every time that damn notebook was produced the same feeling of absolute terror would flood over his entire body in anticipation of whatever frightful and painful thing was about to happen.

When he’d seen Helmut Zemo, back in 2016, remove that very same book from his bag while purporting to be a psychiatrist, it was as if he’d been transported back in time. As if he were back in the Chair with Colonel Karpov or General Markarov as they held the notebook aloft and read the words from it. And he’d been trapped, powerless and helpless as Zemo said those damn words.

When he walked away from Hydra he swore he’d never let himself be controlled again. Never again would he sit passively while other men overcame his mind and his body and sent him to carry out their evil will.

Another failure on his part. He’d been initially so paralysed with fear and so confused by the unexpected appearance of the red book that he’d not seen since Karpov passed him over to the Americans sometime in the 90s that he’d attempted to stop Zemo too late. It wasn’t until Zemo had been several words in that it had actually occurred to him that he didn’t have to sit here and let this happen, that he could actually fight it. And he’d tried, but it had been too little too late, and this had allowed Zemo to force his will on him.

The red book told its reader how to programme him, how to punish him properly, how to respond to non-compliance, what to do if he went ‘rogue’. He still had dreams about that fucking red book even though Shuri had destroyed it in Wakanda back in 2018 upon his request, after successfully cutting off the power the trigger words had had over him.

And then there had been the Memory supressing machine, or rather The Chair as he thought of it. Day after day spent in that machine, being asked question after question about his life. Anything he remembered got zapped out of him.

What is your name?

How old are you?

 What is your mother’s name?

 Where were you born?

 Do you have brothers or sisters?

 Where did you live in Brooklyn?

Who is Rebecca?

Who is Steve?

After a while there was very little he could remember. 

“They put a machine on my head,” Bucky recalled. “It gave me false memories, so I wouldn’t know which memories were real and which were fake. So I’d answer the questions with the fake memories because I thought they were mine. But they took those ones away too. I think they were trying to make it so that if I ever did regain memories, I’d get the fake ones.”

Eventually he was left sitting in his cell, just desperately trying to hold on to the last pieces of who he was.

My name is James. 32557038. My brother’s name is Steve. My sister is called Rebecca. I have a mother, a father.

There wasn’t much else left, and he would sit in his cell each night murmuring his last memories to himself.

“All I knew was that I wanted this to stop,” and then he lowered his voice, this was the part that shamed him most of all. “And then I did it,” he whispered.

“Did what?” Dr Raynor asked.

Bucky felt his eyes water but he refused to let any tears fall. He would not pity himself.

 “I gave up,” he said. “1953 -  I remember I asked Fennhoff what year it was - I begged them to let me forget. I pleaded with them.”

Will you make me forget it all? He’d asked. All eight years? Can I forget this?

“And Fennhoff said they would remove all that, but it would be the last memories they would take, so I needed to stop messing around and making things difficult. So I did. I stopped trying to hold on to the last little bits I could remember of myself. And it was my fault, I couldn’t last any longer.”

You’re making things very difficult for us he remembered Fennhoff saying.

And his own voice pleading, begging to be allowed to forget the absolute horror that had been his life for the last eight years, only to be told that he would be allowed to forget, but only once everything else had been completely eradicated.

All those memories will be gone soon enough, but that’s what we’ll take away last. So you need to stop fighting us

And then

He’s given up. Finally

He buried his face in his hands, still holding in the tears, but it was a hard task. Giving voice to the guilt and shame that had been wrapped around him ever since he first restored these memories was beyond painful. To say these things out loud to someone else, inviting their judgement and condemnation – what if it had been Steve? What if he had told Steve these things? Steve would have wondered why he made all that effort to save Bucky if he had known that Bucky had just given up.

1953 – He didn’t have a month or a day, but it was 1953. This was the day he thought of in his mind as the day he gave up. The day he gave in and gave Hydra exactly what they wanted. Up until then he had tried. Not hard enough perhaps but he had tried to stop the inevitable from happening. But this was the day when it had all got too much for him. It was the last day he had any remnant of himself left.

24 hours of Hell, Fennhoff had then instructed Zola and Lukin.  And then there’ll be no more problems I guarantee it. He’s given up. Finally.”

Less than 24 hours later the last vestiges of James ‘Bucky’ Barnes were torn violently from his head.

“What happened after that?” Dr Raynor prompted him, her voice still steady, revealing no emotion and not providing Bucky with any indication as to what she thought of him.

“I have hardly any memory of what happened after that,” Bucky said truthfully. “They wiped me frequently to stop my brain from fixing itself. They tested things a lot. It’s all a blur really. At some point they messed with my head more, put in the trigger words and such, because my brain would try to mend itself because of the serum and they were worried that in time I would recover myself. So they agreed I had to be kept frozen when I wasn’t in use to try to protect against that. Shuri explained a bit about it to me but I didn’t really listen.”

Zola left for America at the end of 1954. He knew now that Zola had gone to join SHIELD and grew Hydra secretly from within. He’d stood to attention as Fennhoff and Lukin saw Zola off. Zola issued the two of them some final instructions about the Memory Suppressing Machine, and bade them contact him if there were ever issues with the arm.

Zola had then turned to him. “You are my finest creation,” he’d said to the Winter Soldier, “My twisted joke on the Americans. It makes me smile to see Captain America’s brother serving Hydra.”

He couldn’t remember ever seeing Zola again. Fennhoff left a couple of years later, and Lukin had remained for a few years until he was replaced by General Makarov in 1959 and then he too moved on. All three were dead now, having lived full lives and never receiving any punishment for the things they had done.

There could be no justice, no vengeance, no closure.

Bucky dumped his final cigarette into the coffee cup along with the other stubs and clapped his hands together, clearly signalling that he was done.

“And that’s it,” he said. “That’s what happened.”

He looked up at Dr Raynor, waiting for her verdict. While she showed no sign of emotion on her face he noticed that she licked her lips, and there was a slight furrow in her brow which made him think that she appeared a little nervous.

And then she thanked him. Thanked him for sharing everything. Told him that she appreciated very much how difficult it was, said he’d been brave telling her this. “Immensely brave”, she said. It made his eyes sting when she said that.

“What do you think about it?” he asked her anxiously. He’d been expecting condemnation and so far she had not given it. He wanted confirmation of his guilt. To be told that he deserved punishment. To have his guilt and shame reflected back on him.

“I think there are very clear links between your experiences then and your behaviour now,” she said. “Your difficulties with making choices, trusting yourself, your desire to seek out pain, sexual experiences, and all the harmful situations you put yourself in. You are trying to seek control over things that are similar to a time when all control was stripped from you. It stems from these early experiences.”

She paused.

“James,” she said suddenly, “there is something very important I have to tell you. And while I understand that it is an easy thing for me to say, and a much harder thing for you to accept, you have to hear that what they did to you was an egregious wrong. Do you understand that?”

Bucky couldn’t prevent the small noise that escaped him at her words; it was something like a whimper.

She paused again, gauging his response, and then continued: “You are not responsible for the actions of others, or the harm they chose to inflict. Do you see that?”

“I tried,” he said, his voice breaking as the words just poured out of him. “I really tried.” His voice sounded pleading again, like he was trying to convince her, but maybe it was himself he was trying to convince.

“I promise I tried, but I failed. I knew what they were trying to do to me, I knew what they were trying to turn me into, and I tried. It’s just… it was never ending. I couldn’t last. I couldn’t hold out any longer. I wasn’t strong enough.”

Fennhoff’s voice played out in his mind again:

There is only one ending here. The only question is how long it will take us to get there.

 “They knew they would win,” he continued. “They knew I couldn’t hold out forever. It was inevitable that I would give in.”

He’s given up. Finally

“I wasn’t strong enough,” he said again. “I failed. And it was my fault I was even there in the first place. All because I didn’t trust Steve and I lied to him. That last day before the fall – if I’d said what needed to be said we wouldn’t have gone for Zola the next day. And then Steve wouldn’t have gone after Schmidt, and none of the bad things would have happened. I kept all these secrets and left everything too late. And that’s why it all went wrong. And now Steve’s dead and it’s all my fault.”

Failed everyone. It’s all you’ve ever done

Christina pushed the box of tissues closer towards him. He ignored them and wiped at his eyes with his hand. He cleared his throat.

“Anyway,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice stable, and feeling desperate to move the conversation on. He wanted to leave. He wanted to get away from here and put all this behind him now. He’d spoken about the things he’d thought he’d never speak about, and he was ready to move on.

“I’ve told you what happened. You said that speaking about these things would make me well. So what happens now? How do I get well?”

The way she was looking at him was making him feel nervous. There was so much sympathy in her eyes and he hated it. He preferred it when she hid her emotions, but she wasn’t hiding them now.  He didn’t want sympathy, he wanted validation. Validation for the guilt he felt.

“What we need to do next,” she answered, “is to work on understanding these experiences better.”

Bucky frowned. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

“By putting your experiences into context,” she explained.  “By unpacking them, understanding them, reflecting on them and how they affect you now,” she told him.

A sudden panicked feeling rushed through him as he made sense of what she was saying.

Reflecting

Unpacking

The weird psycho speak that she used sometimes that he didn’t really understand, but he knew enough to realise that this meant talking about these things. Again.

Bucky felt pained, and stressed.

“I don’t understand that,” he moaned, “and I don’t want to talk about these things again, it was bad enough today. You told me this would help. I thought it would just be the once. You said…”

“James,” Christina interrupted him, “I need you to trust me when I tell you that I know what I am doing, can you do that?”

He stared at her, his mind racing. Trust her? He really didn’t know. Sometimes it seemed so much like she knew what she was doing; there were times when the things she explained made sense. He respected her for her skills, knowledge and experience and he had to have faith in her because she was all he had. But he’d followed her advice, told her about these horrible experiences, and now she wanted him to do it all over again.

“Why do I need to talk about this again?” he asked, feeling utterly helpless.

Dr Raynor stared at him for a moment, and took her time to consider her next words. When she spoke her tone was calm, soothing.

“We need to work through these experiences in Siberia, James,” she said, “because deep underneath all the feelings of guilt, self-hatred and regret is a young man, in pain, frightened and alone; overwhelmed and vastly overpowered, who tried his hardest to manage the horrific circumstances he found himself in to the best of his ability.”

For the first time throughout this mentally exhausting session Bucky finally lost his control over the tears that had been threatening to fall for the last two hours, and they streamed down his face now as he stared at her. He made no move to stop them, or wipe them away.

Dr Raynor continued in the same level tone.

“I can see him,” she said, “but you can’t. Because you are so determined to be angry at yourself that you won’t let yourself see it in any other way. You have no empathy for the person who you used to be. That’s what I think we need to find.”

Bucky found his voice, somehow, and it shook as he spoke.

“What good does that do?” he asked, and he quickly wiped away the tears with his sleeve, but damn it, they just kept falling. He didn’t want to feel empathy for himself, he didn’t deserve it. He had no right to feel sorry for himself, none whatsoever. He felt nothing but scorn and contempt for the person who he used to be.

Christina picked up the box of tissues herself and held them out to him, and he pulled several out of the box and started mopping at his face with them.

“So you can learn, James,” she replied, “to be kind to your past self. He did the best he could.”

 

Chapter 11: Whispers of a Former Life

Whispers of a Former Life

 

It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t believe Christina when she said that working through his Siberia experiences would help him on the path to recovery, but his therapy sessions over the weeks that followed were excruciatingly horrible, and he deeply regretted more than once his decision to open up to her.

Therapy had already been difficult. It hadn’t come easily to him: being so open and vulnerable with someone else, sharing things he’d never thought he’d share with anyone. But the sessions that followed his revelations about Siberia were even harder. Each one left him feeling shaky and emotional as Christina pressed him to repeat over and over again the same horrific experiences, cut down she said into ‘manageable bite sized chunks’. More than once he’d snapped at her, resorting to swearing and angry words, often on the brink of tears, and on some occasions put his foot down completely and refused to play ball.

Each time this happened she would offer to end things there and then. “Just say the word James, and we can change the subject. We can shelve this and return to it later.” And he was so tempted to do so, but the reminder of just why he was doing this hung constantly over his head. And so he persevered.

“You use such negative and critical language about yourself when talking about these things,” Christina told him during one of their sessions. She had her notebook out and was flipping back through the pages, stopping on one where she’d folder down a top corner.

“You frequently talk about ‘letting people do things’ to you,” she said, clearly reading some of her own notes. “You often make reference to yourself as being ‘weak’ and ‘not strong enough’.”

She looked up at him, expectantly, waiting for a response. Bucky shrugged.

“So?” he asked.

“Well, this sort of language is problematic,” Christina said. “It reinforces in your mind your feelings of guilt, and self-blame. I think we need to work on reframing this. Language is very powerful.”

Reframing

Another one of Christina’s buzzwords. Bucky would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t feeling so tense.

“That sort of language is very shaming,” she said. “And shame is insidious. That critical voice inside your head that tells you to hate yourself, that makes you feel worse and worse. The language you use feeds that. When we speak about these things again we’re going to focus on the language you use. Instead of saying ‘I let this happen’ you need to say ‘this is what happened to me’ or ‘this is what they did’. And instead of descriptions of being ‘weak’, I want you to instead focus on the power imbalance that you experienced, and the power that people had over you, rather than seeing it as some deficiency in yourself.”

And then she led him through it again, prompting him whenever he used words that she deemed too critical of himself, and helping him find new words to describe things. In following sessions she frequently interrupted him to challenge his language, prompting him modify his sentences.

In another session she decided to engage in role play. Bucky had never done such a thing in his life, and he didn’t like it. At all.

“I’m going to read you excerpts of the things you’ve told me,” she said, “as if I was someone else. And you’re going to respond in the way that you think would be appropriate if someone else were telling you these things.”

And oh God that had been tough, hearing his own experiences as if they had happened to someone else, because he knew, he knew objectively that what happened to him was horrific, that it should never happen to anyone; and if someone else were to tell him these things had happened to them he would feel nothing but sympathy for them. But relating that to himself was impossible, because he just couldn’t shake off those feelings of guilt and regret. And he struggled with this task immensely to the point that Christina had chosen to cut that task short, saying they would return to it at a later date. This then resulted in him feeling like a failure, for which he mentally berated himself for hours afterwards, even though Christina hadn’t been annoyed with him at all.

He would have thrown the towel in completely if it hadn’t been for the fact that something was changing over the weeks that followed. He couldn’t have said when he first felt it, but something felt lighter, somehow, inside his head. He’d kept these things locked up so tight, deep deep inside, for so long that unleashing them on someone else had actually felt freeing somehow. And the more she asked him to go over something, the easier it became each time.

Christina helped him draw up a timetable to get him more routine in his days and he found himself actually following it on some days: going to bed at a certain time, tidying up, trying to eat, leaving the apartment, going to the library or going shopping.

He even bought some more furniture. He’d got frustrated by the fact that his few items of clothing just lived in heaps on the floor and so he’d gone to find a wardrobe to go into the bedroom. He then ordered some clothes online to store in it, as he was just wearing the same things over and over again. And then he bought a table, and a couple more chairs to go in the main living area, as well as a coffee table to place between the couch and the television.

He still didn’t buy a bed. He didn’t want a bed. But he was sleeping on the couch now (when he did sleep), and he’d bought a couple of blankets so that must be an improvement.

And yes, there were days when he did nothing. Whole days passed in between his therapy sessions when he didn’t leave the house, when he didn’t sleep or eat, and when all he wanted was to drink until he passed out, and he would spend hours chain smoking on the little balcony trying to keep dark thoughts at bay, but when he told Christina about these days she didn’t make him feel bad about it.

“We just start over again the next day,” she told him, “it’s not a big deal.”

There was Sam too. They’d ring each other occasionally to catch up. Superficial, light-hearted conversations that he enjoyed, and he’d think back to them and the memory would make him smile. Sam kept making suggestions about meeting up. Whenever Bucky told him that he’d tidied up, or that he’d bought some new furniture Sam would make hints about wanting to come and see his apartment. Bucky was tempted. He was beginning to seriously consider that perhaps Sam wasn’t just acting out of obligation, as he’d bitterly moaned to Christina a couple of months ago; that perhaps he and Sam could be friends. Or actually maybe they already were, and not just forced acquaintances with a Steve shaped hole lingering between them.

It was about four weeks after he first told Christina about what happened in Siberia when she declared to him that she had some news for him.

By the look on her face Bucky guessed this wasn’t good news and he waited with some trepidation for her to continue.

“I’ve heard from the White House,” she said, “that they’ve pulled some strings to get you your possessions back.”

Bucky blinked in astonishment. That was good news surely?  From her body language he’d been expecting her to tell him someone had died or something. And he told her this.

“I knew that you would be excited about this,” she said, “but I’m concerned about the potential of this being very triggering for you, and I think we need to think very carefully about how we do this.”

 Bucky stared at her in disbelief and horror and this must have shown on his face as she continued:

“You’ve been doing really well over the last few weeks,” she explained, “and I wouldn’t want this to jeopardise that.”

“Why would it?” Bucky said, feeling nettled that she would assume he couldn’t cope with this. “This is what I wanted. This is what I want. You’re always harping on at me about how I should I want things. Don’t keep this from me, please.”

She said she had no intention of keeping his items from him, but her concern was that this was managed properly.

“I want you to have someone with you when your things get delivered,” she said.

Bucky objected vociferously to this, shaking his head.

“I don’t need babysitting, Christina,” he said. “These are my possessions. I wanted them. I think I can cope.”

She continued to look dubiously at him, and Bucky knew enough about her by now to know that he was not going to win this battle. A sudden solution came to him and he threw it towards her as a compromise.

“What about Sam?” he asked. “He keeps saying he wants to visit, and I’m sure there are some things there that he’ll be interested in. What if he was with me instead?”

Christina considered this for what seemed like an age and then agreed that this would be an acceptable compromise. Bucky sighed in relief.

“This is only because I know he’ll call me if there are any issues,” Christina said.

Bucky rolled his eyes at this, but internally he was rejoicing. He felt like he’d won a victory, a small one, but a victory nonetheless.

“There won’t be any issues, I promise,” he told her confidently.

Among his items were photographs and letters, the director at the museum had said. If Bucky’s memory wasn’t fooling him, although goodness knows that was a big assumption, he had a feeling that some of those photographs and letters may feature Steve. Sam would surely be interested in seeing these things.

He and Sam still never spoke about Steve. It was a shared loss and a shared grief but they both danced around the subject. On the odd occasion when he got mentioned by one of them accidentally, the other glossed over it. Sam appeared to be taking Bucky’s request not to speak about him seriously, which Bucky appreciated, but it had been just over half a year ago now since Steve died, and maybe it was time to start talking about him.

He had a feeling that Sam would appreciate this.

He was desperate to ask Christina about his father’s gun, whether it would be included with the return of his items, but he didn’t want to hear her tell him that it wouldn’t be allowed. It alone meant more to him than anything else could; it connected him to his father, and he knew how much his father would want it back within the family. He decided to wait and see what happened. If it wasn’t included he would bring it up then. He mentally prepared arguments about it while Christina nattered on about his emotions and how to manage them.

It’s not like it would be difficult for him to get a gun if he wanted one, he mused; he could get one in less than an hour, easy. So what would be the point of keeping this one from him? And hadn’t Christina told him that his assessments consistently concluded that he posed a low risk of harm to other people? And it wasn’t like he needed a gun to be dangerous, anyway. Although, he realised, that probably might not be one of the best arguments to put forward.

Less than a week later all arrangements were made. Delivery was to be expected that Saturday morning and Sam had indeed agreed to come over as Bucky had predicted, thus negating the need for Christina to arrange babysitters for that weekend, although she said that she would keep someone on standby if needed, which Bucky scoffed at.

“You must ring me if anything gets too much for you,” Christina instructed him earnestly, and he promised her he would, although internally he knew everything would be fine.

Bucky spent the Saturday morning waiting for Sam and his delivery trying to rid his apartment of the stench of cigarette smoke as he knew how much Sam hated his smoking. He bought a tonne of various sprays in order to try to cover the smell, and he mentally resolved not to smoke while Sam was there. He hadn’t smoked for three hours already and he was horrified to realise how much he craved one.

How many times had he told Christina he could stop smoking whenever he wanted? It wasn’t like he was addicted: he was a super-soldier for crying out loud. He couldn’t get addicted. But she never seemed to believe him. And now he felt irritated to discover just how hard it was indeed to go a length of time without one. Maybe he should quit.

He forced it from his mind and busied himself with getting everything nice.  The last time Sam had been here the apartment and Bucky himself had been in an absolute state. He was determined that it would be better this time. He would show Sam that he was better. The memory of Sam’s last visit still made him cringe internally every time he thought about it.

He spent the morning tidying and organising everything. It looked so much better than when Sam had last been here, he thought Sam would be bound to notice. He hoped Sam would notice. He’d replaced the old blinds with some nice new ones, he’d freshened the paint on the walls, there was more furniture, and he’d spent his Friday afternoon shopping so he could fill his cupboards and the fridge with food. He’d not give Sam anything to criticise, and Sam would see how much progress he’d made.

And all his efforts were rewarded as the first thing Sam said when he came in was “It looks great in here,” as his eyes scanned the room, and then rested on Bucky himself. “You look good, Buck,” he said.

Bucky felt a thrill shoot through him at Sam’s words and he couldn’t prevent himself from beaming at Sam. He’d noticed

 “Do you want a drink?” he asked. “I bought stuff. Coffee, tea, sugar, milk. I have food too.” He opened the fridge so Sam could see, keen to ensure that Sam could see just how good everything was now.

His eyes followed Sam’s as he looked round the kitchen and he noticed them alight on the knife block Bucky kept next to the sink, filled with kitchen knives.

“They’re blunt,” Bucky said quickly, feeling his face redden, as he knew what Sam must be thinking. “I don’t…” he hesitated. He couldn’t say that he didn’t self-harm anymore as that would be a lie. “They’re for cooking,” he finished instead.

Christina kept going on at him about trying to eat properly, but how was he supposed to do that without proper kitchen implements? So he’d bought some knives and then blunted them. They were practically useless; he might as well not have bothered.

Of course he wouldn’t mention the knife he’d affixed to the underside of the couch. In case of moments of great need.

“Can barely cut butter,” he mumbled.

“Coffee?” Sam suggested, responding to Bucky’s offer of a drink and Bucky let out a sigh of relief that Sam wasn’t going to say anything about the knives, and busied himself making drinks while Sam went to admire the rest of the apartment.

“That’s a very nice couch,” Sam said, looking down at it, as Bucky placed the two hot drinks on the coffee table. “Someone has great taste.”

“You would know,” Bucky said, sitting down, “you’re the one who chose it.”

“I know, I meant that I have great taste,” Sam said with a grin as he moved Bucky’s thin blanket out of the way so he too could sit down. Bucky stared at it in dismay; he’d meant to hide that in the other room. He didn’t want Sam to know that he still didn’t own a bed.

“You’ve moved from the floor then?” Sam asked. “You should get some cashmere blankets, way more comfortable.”

Bucky was saved from answering by the sound of the buzzer. Bucky launched up from the couch as if he’d been shocked, excitement coursing through his veins as he sprinted across the room.

“I’m on my way,” he shouted down the intercom before rushing out of his apartment and practically throwing himself down the stairs.

By the time Sam joined him on the ground floor, Bucky was already balancing three heavy crates on top of each other, and attempting to make his way precariously up the stairs. Sam took the top box off him, groaned at the weight, and put it down heavily on the floor.

“Why not take the lift?” Sam asked, gesturing.

Bucky’s eyes flickered towards the lift. He didn’t want to tell Sam that he was a little uncomfortable with being in such a small enclosed space.

“I hear that stairs are better exercise,” he told Sam instead.

“What are you implying?” Sam asked. “I know I had a bit of time off and I put on a few pounds, but it’s all muscle, I swear.” He flexed his right arm as if in demonstration and then began heaving his own heavy box towards the lift.

He wasn’t wrong, Bucky thought, shuffling the boxes in his arms so he could look past them to watch Sam as he manoeuvred the box towards the lift. Sam had certainly achieved some muscle mass since they’d last met.

He couldn’t stop his mind from noticing just how good Sam looked. Bucky caught himself and forced the thought from his mind.

Not appropriate he told himself as he continued up the stairs.

Back in his apartment Bucky threw himself into tearing the crates open, and started searching through them frantically. He barely noticed when Sam returned with the third box and put it down on the floor next to him.

The most important thing he wanted… the thing he cared most about… was it here? He shoved things aside barely paying any attention to them. Books, envelopes, clothes and…

And there it was. His father’s revolver. They had included it. It was wrapped up in an old military jacket along with a number of medals which Bucky let clatter to the floor. He remembered Steve telling him he’d been awarded some medals, posthumously. He had no interest in them; he knew he was undeserving of such accolades.

He became aware of Sam in his periphery tentatively peeking into one of the other boxes. Bucky decided against drawing Sam’s attention to the revolver. He had a feeling Sam might have an opinion about it. He quickly re-wrapped it back up in the jacket and shoved it back into the box.

He had such mixed feelings about that gun – he had longed to have it back, it had meant so much to him. The day his father had given it to him had been one of the proudest moments of his life. But at the same time it represented death, loss and guilt.  

He looked over towards Sam who was still gingerly peering into one of the boxes.

Sam was a bit hesitant, Bucky realised, to just dive in and pull out Bucky’s things, but he was holding something Bucky instantly recognised.

A sketchbook.

“Oh my god,” Bucky breathed. “They included these?” He took the closed sketchbook from Sam’s hands, and looked into the box to see several more.

What were these doing here? These were Steve’s things.

“Look,” he said to Sam giving him permission to pick up another one and flick through it.

“These were Steve’s?” Sam asked, as he flicked carefully through the pages.

“Yes, they can’t have realised, otherwise they would never have given them back. I doubt they even looked,” Bucky said. He gestured towards a page. “Look,” he said, “Steve signed and dated everything he ever drew since he was eight years old.”

“These are your family?” Sam guessed, as he flipped through portraits. Bucky looked over.

“Yeah,” he said. “Steve drew a lot he was younger, that’s how he was so good. He was so ill, almost all the time, particularly in the winter months. He would sit in bed for days and just draw.”

“There’s a lot of you,” Sam observed, “and your mother. I suppose that’s your mother?”

Bucky nodded, and stared avidly at the pencil sketch. He’d been desperate to try to get an image of his mother in his head, a proper idea of what she looked like. And here was a near-perfect rendition. It almost took his breath away to see it.

“He asked us to pose for him, so he would get better at it,” Bucky remembered. “He’d have us sit for hours. I’d get so bored, so he asked me to read to him to keep me still.”

Can you stop moving, Buck!? Just five more minutes

He put a hand over his mouth as he looked through more portraits as emotions started to flood through him.

“I don’t believe these are here,” he said, mystified. “I never thought I’d see these again.”

And why were they here now in his possession? Why had Steve not had them? Steve had gone to the Smithsonian. Had he never asked about this stuff?

“Why wouldn’t Steve have asked for these things?” he asked.

“Steve wasn’t that big on reminiscing about the past,” Sam said. “I think he found it too painful. Whenever he did it was very superficial. I don’t think it would have even occurred to him. He talked about you a lot though.”

“Really?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said starting to grin. “All the trouble you got him into as kids.”

“The trouble I got him into?” Bucky asked in mock outrage. “Even decades later he was still trying to pin it all on me, was he? Typical.”

And then a sombre silence grew between them. Bucky felt that Sam, like him, was thinking about Steve.

Sam cleared his throat. “A lot of people would want these,” he said gesturing towards the sketchbooks. “They’d be worth a fortune.”

“Well they’re mine,” Bucky said. “No-one’s getting them. They’re Steve before he became Captain America, when he was just my little brother.”

Sam nodded. “Of course,” he said. He put the sketchbooks back down into the box, and pulled the third box over and peered into it.

“Books,” Sam said.

Bucky remembered being an avid reader once. He devoured books, back then. Books about extra-terrestrials, and time travel, and what the future might look like. Science fiction and fantasy. His past self would have been thrilled to know what the 21^st Century was like.

He’d had interests, back then. Things that would get him feeling excited.  Maybe he could regain that.

“I’ll need to get a bookcase,” he said, looking round the still fairly empty room to see where one could go. Yes, he thought. A bookcase would go nicely next to the television. And maybe some shelves. He’d yet to find the photographs but maybe he could frame some and put them up on the shelves, or on the walls. He mentally pictured what it might look like. He could make this place nice, he thought. Maybe then it would feel more like a home, rather than just a place where he existed.

As Sam looked through some of his books, Bucky went for another dig for the photographs. He remembered seeing some envelopes during his frantic search for the revolver: the photographs would be there. And there was one in particular he was looking for, one that he knew Sam would want to see. When found, he quickly bypassed all the other photographs, intently focused on this one only.

And he found it, and he actually gasped out loud when he saw it, causing Sam to look over and ask him if he was okay. Bucky passed it over to him.

All the photographs were in black and white, of course, they were old. And they hadn’t owed a camera when he was growing up so photographs were rare. His mother generally borrowed Uncle Harry’s camera when she wanted photographs taken.

This one was taken when Bucky was 12, Steve 10 and with little Becca, just a baby.

Bucky, holding Becca and grinning at her, while Steve stood straight and smart, staring at the camera. Bucky closed his eyes and pictured the scene. His mother fussing over his hair, trying to smooth it out and moaning about his presentation.

Why can’t you be more like Steve? How did you get holes in these clothes already? I just fixed them

How is there dirt in your hair already? Have you been climbing trees again?

Stop fidgeting, Jamie 

Look at your Uncle, look at the camera

Bucky had been right that Sam would like this one.

“Wow,” Sam said, taking it carefully from Bucky, “I’ll bet no-one’s seen a photo of Steve this young before. God, people would kill to see this.”

Bucky smile nostalgically. “I’m pretty certain that’s the first photograph ever taken of him,” he said. “His mother couldn’t take any photographs.”

Bucky dug out another photograph while Sam remaining gazing at the photo of Steve.

“I think this is the first one of me,” he said, showing it to Sam. This one was him and his dad. On the back in his mother’s handwriting was written George and Jamie 1922

Sam looked at it.

“This is your dad?” he asked. Bucky nodded.

“Gosh,” Sam said. “He looks just like you.”

Hadn’t he said as much to Christina once? Bucky thought. How much the Barnes’ all looked alike? Apart from Becca. 

Sam turned the photo over and stared at the date.

“It’s just hitting me that it says 1922,” he said, with a tone of wonder. “Shit. I keep forgetting. I don’t know why I keep forgetting. I never did with Steve. He was more old fashioned than you, a real fish out of water sometimes.”

Sam paused. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I know you don’t like talking about him.”

A bit redundant now, Bucky thought, given that they’d been talking about him already, looking through the sketch books and photographs, but he appreciated Sam’s care. He decided to reflect some of it back at him.

“I’m sorry for making such a fuss about that,” he said. “That was wrong of me. And I don’t mind talking about him, not really.”

And he realised that this was in fact the truth. That it was actually cathartic to be speaking about Steve. What was it Sam had said?

I want to talk about him. It helps me mourn

Maybe there was something to that, Bucky thought, as he gazed sadly at ten year old Steve in the photograph. Gosh he was so tiny back then. Bucky at 12 had towered over him.

Had Steve had nothing from the past? Only memories? Did he ever try to find out if any of his possession were salvageable? Maybe it had hurt him too much to think about it. He traced a finger over Steve’s image. It must have been so hard for him, he thought, waking up all alone in a strange new world and having to just adapt and get on with things. Did he have any help or was he just left to struggle through it alone?

He had Sam, eventually. But before then… Who did Steve have?  

And it would have been harder for Steve, Bucky knew. Steve had never adapted well to change, new technology and ideas. As Sam said, Steve was quite old-fashioned. Even back in the 30s he’d been old-fashioned in many ways. To think of how it must have been for Steve, waking up alone, 70 years in the future; it hurt to think about.

And why did that happen? Bucky thought to himself. We know why. Because of you.

He wasn’t supposed to think thoughts like that, he knew this. Christina had spent hours with him, trying to help him rephrase these critical thoughts, but the thoughts still appeared.

Because they’re true

He shook his head violently, and then froze, hoping that Sam hadn’t seen. If Sam had seen, he pretended not to.

“You were a very cute little boy,” Sam said, gesturing at the photo of five year old Bucky.  

Bucky grinned at him, but then the smile faded as some memories flickered into his mind.

A smile that’ll break girls’ hearts his mother would say such a handsome boy, you look so much like your father

A wave of sadness encompassed him as he stared at his father’s face. It suddenly hit him, really hit him, that his father was dead, and he would never see him again. His mother too. Uncle Harry. His sisters. His cousins.

He had known this objectively. He’d talked about it in therapy. Of course he had known all of them were dead and gone. Long dead. But suddenly now, staring at their faces, it hit him - really hit him - what this meant.

That they weren’t just out there somewhere, waiting for him to come back.

He’d promised his mother he would come home in one piece. He’d broken that promise.

He would never come back.

And that little boy in the photograph, himself, smiling, so ignorant of all the horrors that lay ahead of him, all the evil he would commit.

Suddenly he understood why Dr Raynor had been concerned that this would be difficult for him. In all of his excitement he’d ignored her warnings. He should have listened to her. That was starting to become a common theme, he thought bitterly. Christina telling him things that he scoffed at, only to realise too late how right she’d been. He hated her for that, hated how well she knew him.

“Who are these?” Sam asked, picking up another photograph. Bucky looked at it and frowned. He wasn’t sure. Three women; one of them looked like his mother but younger, the other two – he didn’t know.

“It says 1955 on the back,” Sam supplied helpfully.

“Oh, it’s my sisters,” Bucky breathed, taking it from him. “They’re older. It must have got in here by accident, when my sisters cleared all this stuff out. Oh, look at them, all grown up.”

As with the other photos it was in black and white, but when he closed his eyes he could see Becca’s blonde curls, so like their mother’s, and Jeanie’s and Judith’s bright blue eyes, so like his own.

1955 he thought. He was well and truly the Winter Soldier by then, and they would have long finished entertaining any hopes that he or Steve would return. And his father was dead then too, having but a bullet into his own brain years before. And yet there they were, carrying on with life.

He recalled what Steve had told him about them. His mother had died in 1975, of old age. Becca sometime in the 90s and Judith in 2013, both of natural causes. Jeanie died in 1956, not long after this photo was taken. Complications with a pregnancy, Steve had said. The child hadn’t survived either. When Steve had first told him all of this Bucky had barely paid attention. He’d had no memory of these people; it was hard to feel sad for the deaths of people he knew nothing about. But now he could remember. He could remember how much Jeanie had loved animals, always trying sneak homeless cats into the house to the great fury of his mother. Judith had loved fantasy books so he would sit with her and tell her stories about magic and dragons. And Becca – she’d been so intelligent, doing so well at school and working so hard, and she’d had a wicked sense of humour, so quick witted and funny.

He felt like he wanted to cry, and by the way Sam was looking at him, he was sure that Sam could tell just how close Bucky was to a full emotional breakdown.

He didn’t want Sam to see him upset; this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Sam was supposed to see how much better he was. He’d worked so hard to appear normal, like everything was okay.

He looked around the room, at the things he and Sam had unearthed. These were his things from the time before it all went wrong. This stuff made up James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes; this was who he had been. But what did that mean? What was it that made a person themselves? Could someone look through these boxes and say this is who James Barnes was? These items around him were no more than echoes: echoes of a person long dead; whispers of a former life.

And who was he now? Certainly he wasn’t the same person anymore. James Barnes was dead; he’d been killed many years ago. And yet here he was now; or some twisted, lesser version of him. And what was the purpose of all of this? Was he supposed to try to reclaim who he had been, to resurrect Bucky Barnes and step back into a dead man’s shoes? And how?

It seemed like such an impossible task.

 

 

Chapter 12: Emotionally Vulnerable

Notes:

Content warning - panic attack, description of some self-harming behaviour (low level)

Emotionally Vulnerable

 

“So,” Sam said, successfully getting Bucky’s attention and diverting his mind away from how miserable he was starting to feel, “growing up in the 20s and 30s then? What was that like?”

“What did Steve say about it?” Bucky asked.

“Not much,” Sam said with a shrug. “He said something about polio and water pie and that was about it really.”

Bucky let out a short laugh, relieved to feel his mood lift substantially. This was going to be okay, he thought to himself. This was why Christina had not wanted him to be alone. Having Sam here would keep the low feelings at bay, give his mind a distraction.

 “That’s about right,” he said. “It was shit.”

“Really?” Sam asked sceptically. “All the time? I mean, Steve said life was hard and I know he never said very much but he did say he had been happy. That you were happy too.”

“Don’t know why he said that,” Bucky replied. “He spent most of that time believing he would never live through another winter. What do they call it when you only see the good things? Seeing the past through rose tinted glasses or something?”

He took a moment to think about it a bit more carefully; life hadn’t been all bad back then, of course it hadn’t. There was love and family and laughter in the middle of all the hardship and struggles. He’d made a life for himself, and he’d been content with it, before he stupidly decided to join the army.

“Well, I suppose it was fine at the time if you had nothing to compare it to,” he conceded. “But Steve and I grew up during the depression, and we had no money, and my parents really struggled to put food on the table. Steve’s own mother died of a disease which is curable and preventable today. Not to mention all the casual and prevalent misogyny and racism.”

He paused, uncertain of how to continue. He wasn’t particularly savvy on modern day race conversation and he didn’t want to say the wrong thing, to insinuate that racism now wasn’t a big deal.

“There may still be problems now,” he said, “but looking back I can tell you that the 21^st Century is much better.”

It was as close as he could come to saying that he liked being here, but he couldn’t say that. How could he be happy to be here considering the path taken for him to get here?

He idly pulled out another envelope containing more photos and pulled one out.

He froze.

Sam hadn’t noticed; he was still flicking through the other photographs. Bucky forced himself to breath as he looked down at the photograph of him, Howard, Dugan and Dernier.

Oh! He remembered this photograph. Dugan in his ridiculous bowler hat, Dernier laughing at some bad joke he’d made. And there too was Howard.

He remembered Howard showing him the photo. It was just after the four of them had returned from their subversive road trip to recover Howard’s stolen plans for his flying robot or whatever it was. He remembered telling Howard that he would send the photograph home so his parents could keep it safe for him.

When I get back I’ll frame it and hang it on the wall

The memory forced itself into his head so violently it made his head spin. He worked so hard to keep thoughts of Howard at bay, and also Dugan and Dernier. And why?

Because he’d killed all three of them.

And there they all were; the four of them together. Three men standing with the man who would one day murder them. His friends. All of them had saved his life in one way or another, and for what?

With a shaky hand he thrust it back into the box and covered it with an item of clothing.

“Who is this?” Sam asked him, proffering yet another photograph towards him. Bucky mentally told himself to pull himself together, and focused on the person in the photo.

This one made him smile, and succeeded in pushing the other photograph firmly out of his thoughts.

“It’s Jack,” he said, taking the photo from Sam and gazing at it fondly. Jack had given it to him as a birthday present, in – he checked the back – March 1939.

Sam was looking at him curiously, so Bucky knew he had to give an explanation.

“Jack was my….” he faltered. He didn’t really know what word to use to describe his relationship with Jack. He wasn’t used to talking about it. Back then, for so many years, his mental rule had been never talk about Jack that he didn’t even have a word for what they were to each other.

“Partner?” Sam supplied helpfully and Bucky gratefully latched onto the word. Yes, he thought. That sounded right. That sounded like a word he’d be comfortable with using.

“He got married while I was in Krausberg,” Bucky said.

“Ouch,” Sam said.

“It worked out for the best,” Bucky said. “I was furious with him at the time, but in hindsight… I guess I’m just glad I didn’t leave anyone behind like that.”

“Like Steve and Peggy?” Sam asked.

Bucky couldn’t help himself; the reaction was spontaneous and visceral: a scoff, a scowl and he rolled his eyes.

“Woah!” Sam exclaimed, taking in Bucky’s response. “There’s some story there, I can tell.”

Bucky sighed and shook his head.

“She and I, we didn’t get on very well,” he said reluctantly.

“I’ll say,” Sam said, his voice a tone of wonder. “Judging from that response I can see there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“It was such a long time ago,” Bucky said, reluctant to open up old wounds for no reason. “She’s dead. Steve’s dead. Let it lie.”

Sam stared at him for a moment. He looked intrigued and Bucky braced himself for more questions, but they didn’t come. Instead Sam tactfully rolled the topic back.

“How long were you with Jack?” he asked.

“Almost eight years,” Bucky said, gratefully seizing Sam’s change of topic.

“Wow,” Sam said, sounding impressed. “That’s a proper relationship. And Steve didn’t know?”

Bucky shook his head, and chewed on his bottom lip. That Steve had never known was a source of great regret for him.

“Didn’t you live together? You and Steve?” Sam asked, sounding confused. “How did you hide that for eight years?”

Bucky shrugged. “It wasn’t that difficult,” he said. “We were careful. There were a couple of near misses, but Steve was thankfully oblivious. And it wasn’t a real relationship. It was never going to go anywhere. It couldn’t. It was always going to end.”

He’d known that at the time, but he’d been young and in love and he didn’t care very much about the future. He’d just been happy with living, taking each day as it came, and letting the future sort itself out.

 “So I’m glad now that he got married and lived a life without me,” he said, “but I was devastated when I found out. He was the great love of my life,” he rolled his eyes at how corny he sounded.

“Did you have anyone like that?” he asked Sam.

Sam considered this for a moment; it looked like he was internally wrestling with himself, as if deciding whether or not he was going to answer the question. After several moments of clear mental agonising which completely piqued Bucky’s interest it seemed he finally came to a decision.

“Yes, I did,” Sam said, “his name was Riley. We were in the military together. He was part of Project Falcon. I was Falcon, his codename was Redwing.”

The significance of this was not lost on Bucky. The past tense, the name ‘Redwing’ and the pronoun ‘he’.

He stared at Sam in a shocked amazement as all of this filtered through his brain and he slowly made sense of what it was Sam was telling him.

“What happened?” Bucky asked eventually, still completely bowled over by Sam’s admission.

“He died,” Sam said, and his normally stable and calm voice actually shook slightly as he spoke. “He got blown out of the sky in front of me. It was…” he fell silent, unable to continue.

Bucky stared at him, aghast.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “What a thing to happen. That’s…” He trailed off, unable to find a word that could do justice to the terrible thing that Sam was telling him.

Sam nodded.

“It was the single most horrific thing I’ve ever had to witness,” he said, “and I was powerless to stop it as he died in front of me. There wasn’t even a body to bury.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say, words completely escaped him. He suddenly realised how very little he actually knew about Sam, and he searched his mind for the right words to say, but he couldn’t find any. He felt useless.

“It’s okay,” Sam said, although he did have to take a deep breath to compose himself. “It was a long time ago, and I’ve grieved and made my peace with it. I left the military, had therapy, addressed my feelings of guilt, and then went on to provide counselling to veterans myself. I even moved on a bit. Some men, some women; no-one ever made the cut though. Nothing serious. If Jack was the great love of your life, then Riley was mine.”

Bucky just continued to stare at Sam in astonishment. He’d known none of this. He felt like the world’s worst friend, so wrapped up in his own issues that he never once thought about these details of Sam’s life.

And for Sam to share these things with him… these were personal intimate details of his life, not the kind of thing you just told anyone.

He moved to join Sam on the couch and watched as Sam continued to flick through the photographs. He stared at Sam trying to find the right words to express the whirlwind of thoughts in his head. How grateful he felt to Sam for telling him these things, how sorry he was, and also…

And as he appraised Sam he couldn’t prevent some other thoughts from invading his mind.

It had never occurred to him that Sam might like men. He’d seen Sam flirt with some of the Wakandan women during his visits, and he’d spoken about Steve’s friend, the Black Widow, a fair amount, but there’d never been any indication that he liked men as well.

This knowledge flicked a little switch in Bucky’s head and he realised he was looking at Sam in a completely new light.

He had always given himself very strict rules: don’t fall for people who can’t or won’t reciprocate. Don’t fall for friends. He had always occupied two worlds, and the two never collided.

Jack had occupied one world, and Steve had occupied another. They had been kept completely separate, and that was how it had always had to be. That was how he kept himself safe.

But times were different now; it was no longer necessary to hide in the shadows and pretend to be something you’re not.

And Sam liked men.

And Sam was good and kind, funny and smart, and also, Bucky suddenly realised, very handsome. He had a nice smile. Dark hair, dark eyes, Bucky had always liked that. Tall, but not taller than Bucky himself. And muscular. He realised that Sam ticked a lot of boxes.  

“Do you know what happened to Jack?” Sam asked him. Bucky pulled himself out of his thoughts.

Now is not the time, he told himself forcefully.

“Well, he’s definitely dead,” Bucky said with dark humour. “I did a brief search but didn’t come up with anything. I didn’t try very hard to be honest.”

He’d stopped looking up what had happened to the people he used to know. It had got far too depressing once he found out how his father had died.

“I can find out for you, if you like,” Sam offered.

Bucky thought about this. Some part of him thought it might actually be quite nice to know how Jack’s life had gone. Jack had got married, maybe he’d had children. Maybe he had grandchildren still living. That was a weird thought, but not a bad one. It was nice to think that there might still be some part of him still existing.

Sam asked for Jack’s details and pulled out his phone to type them in.

“His name was actually Johnathan,” Bucky said, giving Sam Jack’s full name. 

“How do you get Jack from Johnathan?” Sam asked. “You guys sure had some weird nicknames in the 30's. Don’t even get me started on yours.”

“Steve gave me mine, did you know that?” Bucky asked suddenly. When Sam shook his head he continued. “Before ‘Bucky’ everyone called me ‘Jamie’. Then Steve wanted a name only he called me. So he came up with Bucky. But I liked it so much I got everyone to call me that. So then he called me ‘Buck’. Gave my nickname a nickname. He was the only one to ever call me that.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sam said. “I’ve called you Buck. Does that bother you?”

“You can call me what you want,” Bucky said with a shrug. He’d felt uncertain about Sam calling him ‘Buck’ at first but now he actually quite liked it. It seemed quite right actually that Sam would claim the name that Steve used to call him, and to be the only one to do so.

Sam nodded. “What was Jack’s date of birth?” he asked, finger poised over his phone.

“February 2^nd, 1902,” Bucky said easily.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “1902?” he questioned casually.

“He was little a bit older than me,” Bucky clarified.

“You don’t say,” Sam said, raising his eyebrow even higher if that was possible. “Fifteen years older in fact.”

Bucky declined to say anything in response to this, as he felt Sam was being critical. Of him or of Jack, he couldn’t tell. And this made him feel uncomfortable. He chose to change the subject.

He was thinking about Steve, and what Sam had said earlier...

“You said that Steve used to talk about me,” he asked Sam. “What sort of things did he say?”

Sam smiled. “He said that he spent his whole childhood wanting to be like you.”

That sounded about right, Bucky thought. He’d known how much Steve had admired him, although he’d never really felt like this was deserved. He remembered after Krausberg, furiously demanding that Steve tell him why he’d been so stupid as to allow some crazy German scientist experiment on him, and Steve’s response:

I wanted to be like you

And this had caught him completely by surprise.

There are better people to emulate, Steve, he’d said. And Steve had replied:

I don’t think so

“After 2014,” Sam continued, “I would complain bitterly about the wild goose chase you had me on, leading me on a merry dance across the whole of Eastern Europe, and he would remind me of exactly why I was doing this.”

“Why?” Bucky asked.

“He said that you were worth all the trouble.”

Bucky stared at Sam, hardly daring to believe the words that Sam was saying.

“And you know what?” Sam asked hypothetically. “He was right. You were.”

Bucky felt his eyes water as the impact of those words hit him. He stared at the floor as his vision blurred.

“He really cared about you, you know that?” Sam asked him.

Bucky looked across at Sam, barely able to see him through the misty haze that encompassed his vision.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice cracked slightly as he spoke. “I know,” he took a breath, trying to calm himself, and tried to control the tears threatening to fall. “I know he did.” He raised a hand to his eyes, trying to shield them from Sam’s view.

“Buck,” Sam said. And then suddenly Sam’s hand was on his shoulder and Sam had shuffled closer towards him. “You mustn’t be ashamed to show your grief,” Sam said. “It’s okay. It’s not good to shut up your emotions; you need to let them out. Shout. Scream. Cry. Whatever works. It’s okay. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it all.”

“Of course you have,” Bucky said, thinking about all the loss that Sam too had endured. Not only Steve, but there was Riley, his parents, his brother-in-law, and all the time he’d lost with his sister and his nephews. Sam had known loss and grief. Too much.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said, hardly certain of what it was he was apologising for. For making Sam bear Bucky’s own grief and sorrow when Sam had plenty of his own to deal with, or perhaps he was sorry for how much he’d never known about Sam, how much he’d never bothered to ask.

He felt Sam’s hand give him a little squeeze on his shoulder and he looked up and realised just how close Sam’s face was to his own.

 It seemed like the most natural and easiest thing in the world to just lean forward a bit and kiss him.

 And so he did.

And for a brief moment after their lips met he thought he felt Sam respond to the kiss, just for a brief moment. And then Bucky felt hands on his shoulders gently pushing him away, and putting space between the two of them.

“Bucky,” Sam said kindly, “we’re not doing this.”

Bucky cleared his throat and stared down at the floor, stunned. He could feel his brain trying to catch up and make sense of what he had just done. He licked his lips, tasting salt from his tears. He ran a hand across his face; his cheeks were still wet from the tears. And for a moment time stood still as his brain caught up to the realisation of what had just happened.

He’d kissed Sam. What had he been thinking?

“It’s okay,” Sam said, “you don’t need to feel…”

“I don’t,” Bucky quickly interrupted. “It’s fine,” he made brief eye contact with Sam and then quickly looked away, embarrassed.

“It’s fine,” he repeated, feeling his face redden. “I understand. You’re very clear.”

He wiped a hand across his eyes, got up from the couch and started to aggressively put items back into the boxes. Was Sam still staring at him? He wished he wouldn’t. He wished Sam would leave. Or say something.

Actually, he wished he could wind back time and undo the absolutely horrific mistake he’d just made.

He heard Sam get to his feet and step over to him. He froze, staring at Sam with wide eyes, waiting for Sam to say something.

“We should talk about what just happened,” Sam said.

Bucky shook his head. That wasn’t right, he thought. Sam needed to change the subject. Make a joke. Fix it, like he always did.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Bucky said. “I made a mistake, and you’re not interested, and that’s fine.”

Sam laid a hand on his arm, and Bucky stared at him, heart pounding, face aflame, and that familiar buzzing started to build up inside his head.

“That’s not…” Sam started. And then he stopped.

“Bucky,” he started again, his tone controlled and calm but Bucky could hear Sam’s own heart beat almost as fast as Bucky’s own. “You are incredibly emotionally vulnerable right now…”

Sam continued talking but Bucky could no longer hear anything Sam was saying. He repeated those two words over and over again inside the foggy mess that was now his brain.

Emotionally Vulnerable

Emotionally Vulnerable

Vulnerable meant weak – emotionally weak

Weak on the inside

Something inside Bucky turned hard as he mentally translated Sam’s words.

“It would be wrong of me to allow this to continue,” he heard Sam say. “I’d be taking advantage of you. You must see this.”

Bucky felt his blood run cold and he pulled his arm out of Sam’s grasp and stepped back.

“Get out,” he instructed coldly.

A look of resignation fell across Sam’s features as he realised that Bucky was not responding well to his attempts to appease him.

“Buck,” Sam tried, but attempts at reconciliation were now futile. There was no rescuing this conversation.

“Get the fuck out!” Bucky stepped forward, shaking with suppressed rage, as the words erupted out of him. He knew this wasn’t how he should be responding, but he couldn’t help himself. His mind was screaming at him that he needed Sam to leave, and he was close to screaming himself.

He saw Sam step back; his arms rose as if in surrender and there was a wary look in Sam’s eyes.

And the terrible realisation flooded over Bucky that Sam was afraid of him. And this knowledge was enough to give him pause, but he still desperately needed Sam to leave. He knew he was moments away from a full blown panic, all the warning signs were there, and he needed Sam to be away from here when that happened.

He marched over to the door and pulled it open. Sam nodded, reached for his wallet and keys.

“I’ll leave,” Sam said, his voice still the epitome of calmness. “But I’ll have to call Dr Raynor, you know I must. You can’t be left alone like this…”

With a strangled noise of frustration Bucky grabbed Sam by the arm and pushed him -

gently gently

- through the door and slammed it in Sam’s face.

It was then that Bucky lost his tenuous control over himself, turning and slamming his metal fist into the wall and some horrible noise exploded out of him, a shout, a yell, a scream he didn’t even know what it was. 

On the other side of the door he heard Sam swear and footsteps beating a hasty retreat.

Bucky pushed himself away from the damaged wall, and the world spun around him as he clutched his head in his hands and tried to calm himself.

Deep breaths he thought. That was what Christina always told him. Deep breaths activate the pre-frontal cortex or something, and help you regain control over yourself.

It wasn’t working.

The room continued to spin around him. He wasn’t sure if it was himself who was spinning round and round in circles or if it was just his brain making him think that he was. He couldn’t articulate a coherent thought, all he could feel was just this overwhelming sense that something was very badly wrong and he couldn’t fix it. 

He became aware that he was clawing at his metal arm with the fingers on his right hand.

That won’t work he thought dimly it’s metal. Damn metal

And instead he dug his fingernails deep into the flesh on his face and dragged them down and…

Oh God, that was it. Relief

Hydra had always kept his nails cut so short because of his predisposition to harming himself like this, it was the only way he could exercise any autonomy and they took that away from him too. It was part of his defrosting routine. Shove him in the Chair, say the words, pump him full of drugs or whatever to keep him alive, and cut his nails painfully short

…because the soldier’s all screwed up in the head. He self-harms, you know. Like a teenage girl! Can you believe it? …

Since leaving Hydra he’d just let them grow, an act of autonomy and defiance, and thank god for that because the brief sharp shock of pain helped to calm him, calm the raging storm inside his head.

He took several huge breaths, almost like he’d been drowning, gulping in the air as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

He stayed like that for a moment, just still, focusing on his breathing, hand clasped over the wounds on his face as he felt his heart beat slow down, and the noise in his head quietened.

It’s okay, he told himself. I’m okay. I’m calm.

Then he heard his phone ring. It was Christina.

It suddenly hit him as he stared at her name on the screen just how much he had fucked up. He had to answer the call. He had to. If he didn’t she would send someone over, or she might call emergency services, send the police round. Or worse.

He had to answer, had to tell her everything was fine.

But Sam had rung her, he thought, what had Sam told her? He couldn’t bear to think of it. He felt humiliated.

He paced round and round the room agonising over whether to answer or not. He was taking so long thinking about it that the phone rang out three times, and she kept on calling. He threw himself down on the floor and flung the phone away from him. He heard the window smash and he winced.

He was going to be in so much trouble.  He’d lost control, badly. He’d attacked Sam, broken a window and demolished a wall, he’d hurt himself, and he’d refused to answer the phone to Christina. He’d freaked out. This was bad. Really bad. Total failure level of bad. This would be classed as a serious incident. He’d have to speak about it. It would get reported back to the White House. Everyone would know about this… And there would be consequences.

He remained on the floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling, and just waited for something to happen.

After what seemed like an age he heard the ping of the lift and footsteps walking down the hallway. No-one else lived on this side of the building on his floor. The government had paid the owner of the building a hefty sum to keep these rooms unoccupied just in case so anyone coming out of the lift would be for him. He listened carefully.

One person. And judging from the sound of it, it was Michelle, another one of Dr Raynor’s assistants. Just one person. Not police. Not army.

He rose to his feet and moved across the room, and sat himself heavily down at the table as Michelle let herself in after tapping quietly on the door.

He had to appear calm, he told himself, non-threatening. He laid his hands on the table, palms up so she could see they were empty, and held himself loosely, slumping in the chair so as to appear smaller.

“Your, uh, your friend called,” Michelle said, leaving the door open behind her, in case she needed to bid a hasty retreat. “Said he was worried about you.”

Her eyes fell on the damaged wall.

“I can call someone to fix that,” she said.

Her voice appeared calm but Bucky could hear that she was scared. It was the slight quiver in her voice, the fast beat of her heart, and also the way her knuckles were white as she gripped an object so tightly in her fist.

Panic button he realised. She would press it and in an instant there’d be an armed response unit swarming all over the place to contain the crazy rogue super-soldier. He’d had all this explained to him before he’d been released from prison, the protocol in place to respond if he became dangerous.

This situation would have made a lot of people very anxious right now.

He wondered if Sam was still nearby, or if he’d just left.

Michelle breezed around the room, taking everything in, and appearing to gain more confidence as it became apparent that Bucky was not posing her any harm. Like all of Dr Raynor’s assistants she was ex-military and made of stronger stuff, not easily cowed.

“Did you do anything else to yourself?” she asked him, gesturing towards his face which Bucky vaguely remembered clawing at with his fingers.

“No,” he muttered, embarrassed.

She dug around in her bag and pulled out some wipes and pushed them towards him. As she did this, Bucky saw her deposit the panic button in her bag. He let out a small sigh of relief. She didn’t consider him a threat.

Michelle pulled out her phone. “I’ll just let Christina know you’re okay,” she said cheerfully and she began tapping out a message.

Tell them they can stand down he thought. Tell them I’m not freaking out. I’m safe.

Michelle found the television remote and started scrolling through options as she sat down opposite him at the table.

“So, someone has to stay with me until Monday?” Bucky asked her despondently.

“Yep,” came the response, “and all of next week, Christina said. And, from what she was asking me about my availability, I’ll say next weekend as well. We'll get someone to fix the wall, and the window.  I found your phone outside, we'll get you a new one.”

Bucky sighed, and stared down at his hands. Full time babysitting for a week. He thought he had moved on from this. But he’d expected worse ramifications for his behaviour, although the prospect of speaking about this to Christina in his next therapy session felt like a significant consequence in itself.

“I’m sorry,” Michelle said, sounding genuinely sympathetic, “I know you hate this.”

Bucky nodded, hating himself more than the situation. Why did he have such little control over himself? How could he have let this happen? There must have been a better way to deal with what had happened. He’d gone completely overboard in his response and now look at what happened. He let out an audible groan and buried his head in his hands.

He’d been doing better, he thought regretfully, and it hurt so much to think this. He’d been doing well, this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t how the day was supposed to go. This was supposed to be a good day, things were finally going his way and he’d been finally feeling good about things.

Michelle picked a programme to watch and Bucky stared blankly at the TV, not paying it any attention. How dare Sam call Dr Raynor? Telling on him. And it was Sam who had made such a big deal out of nothing. Sam was supposed to be the sensible one. Sam was the one who always said and did the right thing. But what was it Sam had called him?

Emotionally Vulnerable

How dare Sam say that?

Bucky had been doing better, he hadn’t had an issue like this for a while, and Sam had ruined it.  

He felt defeated, broken and betrayed.

And underneath all of that was anger, anger at himself, and then Sam became the target of his angry thoughts.

This was all Sam’s fault, he thought bitterly. He’d never forgive Sam for this.

 

Notes:

Just FYI - Sam did absolutely nothing wrong in this chapter. His response was just as it should be. And Bucky will realise this eventually.

There's a reference to 'water pie' in this chapter. It was a pie often made in the Great Depression and the main ingredient was water, believe it or not.

Chapter 13: Protocol

Notes:

FYI - this chapter hints at something important that happened in 1960. I just want to reassure those of you who haven't read anything else in this series that you are not missing out on anything. What happened in 1960 is yet to be revealed (I love my mysteries).

I know hardly anything about the Vietnam war (which is referenced in this chapter), I did a bit of quick googling but if none of the dates match up then it's because of Hydra.

Warning for the chapter - there's reference to sex / rape used as a punishment

Protocol

 

 

1963

 

“Who the fuck brought a gun in here!?”

Shouting

Shots

Screams

“Get him under control!”

No. Not again. Never again.  He won’t let it happen

“Soldier! Stand down!”

“Where is Rostov? Find him!”

More shouting

He has a gun in his hands, he’d wrenched it from one of the many dead bodies littering the ground around him

Shot after shot rings out, each one finding its mark, as the shouting and screaming intensifies as people run, hide, trying to seek cover

They can try, but this is what he does best

Killing people

It’s all he knows

“Rostov! Shit!”

Noise, so much noise

The screaming inside and outside his head

“Get the fucking tranquilisers!”

Now it’s he who is shouting

Words pour out of him in a nonsensical roar

Not Russian, not German, French or English or any of the myriad of other languages that he speaks

Some weird unintelligible amalgamation of every language he knows pours out of him as he fires bullet after bullet until the gun is empty and he discards it

But it’s not over yet

There’s a fight and he never stops fighting, he doesn’t know how to stop fighting, and he still has his weapon

He has his arm

“Stop him!”

He launches himself towards the voice of the man in command, others get in the way and he grabs them, breaking their limbs, snapping their necks, throwing them to the ground to join the others as he continues to push his way forward

Bodies all around him, blood, guts, other fluids

The stench of death is overpowering but he must continue on, he must

He wants to get out of here

He wants to be free, one way or the other – and death would serve the purpose

“Don’t you dare kill him! The Soldier’s worth more than all of you. Keep him alive. Jesus!”

And then he feels it. The hit. Reaching to pull out the dart but then there’s another. And another

Heaviness in his head, legs failing to keep his weight

His head swimming as he grabs onto a wall to try to keep himself standing,

but fails

and collapses heavily to the floor, his whole body shaking with the effort of trying to keep himself from falling into unconsciousness

General Markarov finally appeared from his cover, walked over to the Soldier and stood over him, swivelling round to survey the destruction around him.

“Shit!” he swore loudly. And then he repeated the word. And then used a different, more foul expletive.

“How many?” he asked. Another voice spoke up: “At least 20 dead, General. 15 wounded.”

The General swore again.

“Get Langdon on the phone. I’m not dealing with this again. Tell him that if the Americans want their President killed they’ll have to get someone else to do it. They can make their own fucking Soldier. This is a fucking nightmare. And you-!”

He grabbed the Soldier by the metal arm and pulled him over to a bench, forcing him down on to it.

Breathing heavily. Vision impaired by the long hair falling over his eyes. The screaming hasn’t stopped inside his head

He doesn’t know where he is

What is happening?

A man’s hand grabbing his chin, forcing his face upwards to make eye contact

Brown eyes glaring daggers into his own

“When are you going to learn,” General Markarov shouted directly at the Soldier, spraying his face with spit, “that a –Good – Soldier – Follows – Orders?!” He punctuated the last four words by shoving the Soldier’s head forcefully into the wall with each word. The Soldier could make no move to resist. Nor did he make any sound.

“You don’t get to freak out because you’re told to do something you don’t want to do!” The General continued, still furious, still raging. “You remember what happened last time?”

“General, he won’t remember,” came a second voice. “He’s had his memory wiped several times since what happened three years ago.”

“No, you don’t remember, do you?” The General said cruelly. “Because I beat, fucked, and zapped it out of you, didn’t I?”

He shoved a finger hard into the Soldier’s forehead and then spat at his face, grabbed his hair and smashed his head once again against the wall.

“General, this isn’t protocol…”

“Shut up, Rostov!” the General shouted at the other man.

Thrown to the floor

 Kicked

Beaten

The man in charge is furious

“What is your only mission, Soldier?”

There is no response. The General kicked the Soldier again.

“General,” the other man insisted, “there’s a reason we have the protocols, it’s all in the book. I’ll get it.”

The General swore as the other man ran off, swerving through the sea of the dead and dying.

“Answer the fucking question!” the General demanded of the Soldier, who was trying and failing to push himself up off the floor. The Soldier collapsed heavily back down to the ground and stared up at the General, peering through the strands of hair that fell over his eyes, with a blank expression on his face, his long hair matted with blood and sweat, breathing heavily.

He knows the answer

“What is the mission, Soldier!?”

Another kick

He finds his voice

“To comply…” the Soldier replied


it comes out of him. It is the answer. It is the only answer

There is nothing else only compliance

He’s been non-compliant

The thought makes him shiver

“Yes, to fucking comply! And now I have 20 dead bodies! 20! Fuck!”

Another forceful blow to the back of his head

“General, you know this doesn’t work,” the other man returned, brandishing a red note book towards the General. “This kind of punishment just causes further problems. There’s a protocol for situations like this…”

“I swear to God Rostov, if you say the word protocol one more time I will shoot you.”

“With all due respect, General, it’s disregarding the protocol that has caused this situation in the first place. Just look.”

The red book

He doesn’t know what it is, what it means. But it’s there. Held aloft. Every instinct in his body is yelling danger! danger! and the screaming in his head gets louder and louder

His eyes are locked onto the red book, following it as it gets passed from one man to another

All else is forgotten

The book is pain

The book is fear

 “We should initiate the 'Blank Slate' protocol,” Rostov said, “he’s significantly destabilised; he will need to be placed back in storage. It says here… look!”

Not that. Not again

He tries to stand again, and he fails

There’s weapons all around him from the people he’s killed, if he can reach out

 “No, I’m not putting him away,” The General said, still loudly, still furious, “There’s more work he can do. I’m done with taking orders from the Americans and they’ll soon learn their lesson. No. Get him back up! Get him back to normal! I want him in Vietnam as soon as possible. The Americans will soon learn who is in charge when we send our Soldier to kill theirs.”

The General looked around the room again, swore and gave the Soldier one last kick for good measure.

“And get this mess cleaned up! Dump the bodies. Get the wounded out of here. Sort it!”

People grab his arms, his legs, drag him towards the centre of the main atrium

There’s a chair

The Chair

He knows this Chair

The Soldier struggled as he was carried over to the Memory Suppressing Machine. Rostov glanced anxiously at him and gestured to the others to hurry up. The tranquilisers could knock out an elephant for several hours and yet for the Soldier they only guaranteed around 15 minutes before he would regain enough strength to pose a significant risk. He barked out an order for the Soldier to be injected with another dose, just in case.

He has to leave

A needle in his arm and the strength leaves him again and he is limp in the Chair

The man with the red book holds up something rubber to his lips while the others restrain his arms, his legs

He’s trapped

There will be pain after this

He refuses. He won’t do this. He won’t comply.

“Come on, Soldier,” Rostov said, his tone almost pleading, as he held up the rubber mouth guard to the Soldier’s closed mouth. The Soldier’s lips were clamped together tightly, refusing to open his mouth. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be. I got the General to leave you without further punishment. This is mercy.”

Mercy

The Soldier found his voice:

“Don’t make me do it. Not again.”

The Soldier stares directly into Rostov’s eyes, they are pleading, desperate and it’s painful to see.

Sadness in this man’s eyes

The sorrow seems real, maybe he will listen

“Kill me,” the Soldier whispered, and it was so quiet that only Rostov, leaning over him with the rubber mouth guard, could hear him.

“You’ve asked me that before,” Rostov said, “and I won’t do it. I’m sorry. But just comply and you won’t remember this, I promise. It will all go away.”

Why are you making me do this?

The Soldier gave in and allowed Rostov to push the rubber mouth guard between his lips.

Why are you making me do this?

Rostov stepped away as the halo came down, and the machine whirred into life. As he always did, the Soldier closed his eyes and noticeably braced himself for the pain that was going to follow.

Why are you making me do this?

Rostov started the countdown from 10, the machines monitoring the Soldier’s heart rate picked up speed as he came closer and closer to zero, and the Soldier’s breathing became quicker and quicker and he pushed himself into the back of the Chair as if he was trying to get away.

Why are you doing this to me?

And then the screaming started.

2024 – present day

 

Bucky shot awake with a jolt in the aftermath of yet another nightmare.

It took him a while to calm himself, to slow his breathing down, and to acclimatise himself to the waking world. It was a dream, he told himself. Only a dream, I’m not there anymore. It’s over.

He’d fallen asleep on the couch, as he always did. The television was on as it always was, with the sound muted, casting light around the room.

He felt sick.

A small noise, barely audible and tinny, reached his ears and he froze as he could not place the noise and it was coming from behind him. He cautiously leaned up from his position on the couch so he could look over, and then flumped himself down with relief as it all came flooding back to him now.

That’s right; he was being babysat after that fiasco with Sam the day before, and that’s where the noise was coming from.

 It was a man this time; he’d replaced Michelle about midnight and had spent several hours just sitting at the table staring at his phone with his ear buds in. He was still in the same position he’d been in when Bucky had fallen asleep round about 3am.

The man, Bucky could not recall his name, was so engrossed on his phone that it seemed he’d thankfully not noticed Bucky shooting awake from a nightmare. Thank heavens for that, because it meant he’d not tell Christina about it.

Bucky checked the time, it was now 5am. He’d got a grand total of two hours sleep.

There was no way he was going back to sleep now but he wasn’t going to get up. If he got up he’d have to interact with his newest babysitter and he certainly did not have the energy for that. Bucky readjusted himself on the couch to try to get more comfortable and let his mind wander to consider the dream he had just had.

He was feeling calmer now that he’d reassured himself he was awake, in his apartment, with everything just as he left it.

It was a dream he told himself again only a dream

But he knew it hadn’t only been a dream.  This had been a memory. A new one.

He remembered the rage he had felt, the fury, and the fear. Pure adrenaline pumping through his veins as he’d fought like some kind of wild, cornered animal.

‘Going Rogue’ was what they called it when this happened. Sometimes the phrase ‘he’s destabilised’ was used in times like this as well.  Most of the time he’d been brilliantly compliant, carrying out his orders and missions efficiently and effectively without any issues whatsoever, but on occasion there were these moments where some beast just seemed to erupt out of him, and he’d go completely feral.

It had happened a fair bit with General Markarov; that man never followed protocol properly, instead opting to manage the Soldier in whatever manner he saw fit. Throughout General Markarov’s tenure as the Soldier’s main handler instances such as this had happened with an alarming frequency.

General Markarov had been a cruel, malicious bastard who revelled in causing pain and loved to assert his dominance over all those around him.

Bucky shifted onto his back so he could stare up at the ceiling while he considered this new memory. Quite a lot had been revealed, he realised, things of great significance.

If the Americans want their President killed, they can make their own fucking soldier

He could place this memory. It was 1963. And that’s why he’d gone rogue. He’d been given his mission – to assassinate the leader of the United States. And something within him had rebelled at this, probably because General Markarov had, once again, forgone to follow his defrosting protocol properly.

He’d not known why at the time but when he’d been given his mission his brain had screamed at him that this was wrong, that he had to disobey, that he had to get out, get away. And then he’d freaked out, resulting in the ensuing carnage.

Maybe some vestige of Bucky Barnes had remerged, Bucky thought grimly as he thought back, some small tiny part of him had balked at the prospect of murdering the President of the country he’d once had loyalty to, and had once fought for. Maybe.

It was almost comforting to get confirmation that he’d not been responsible for the assassination of JFK, the American President in 1963. He’d been pretty certain he hadn’t, and he’d said as much to Christina once, but it was a relief to know for sure.

But that wasn’t the most important revelation of that dream, he realised.

Something else about this dream seemed immensely important and he wracked his brain to try to remember it all properly.

There had been Rostov. A man Bucky had barely any memory of, General Markarov’s second in command, he assumed. He’d seemed fairly pitiful and pathetic as he played second fiddle to the General. A man who felt he was doing Bucky a kindness whilst ripping his mind to shreds. What was it he had said?

This is mercy

Mercy! What a joke!

Bucky could remember the sorrow in the other man’s eyes as he’d forced the mouth guard in. The sorrow had seemed real and yet the man had allowed this to happen anyway.

But Rostov wasn’t important.

And then there’d been General Markarov, declaring with a kind of malicious glee:

No, you don’t remember do you? Because I beat, fucked and zapped it out of you

He winced as the words echoed through his mind, and squeezed his right arm tightly with his metal fingers, trying to cover the shame those words evoked with pain instead.

Christina seemed to be of the impression that the only time he’d been fucked had been during those early years, under Fennhoff’s instruction; she’d never indicated that she had any inking about the other times. Not that there’d been lots of times, it hadn’t been a frequent occurrence, but sex was often about power and control and Markarov liked to experiment with his punishments. This was a man who craved control and loved to wield power over others, and the Soldier had been the perfect repository for his cruelty.

This is mercy Rostov had said. Remembering what he did now about Markarov maybe Rostov hadn’t been wrong. Rostov had certainly believed that what he was doing was mercy, saving him from further punishment from the General. Some twisted version of mercy anyway.

And while he’d forgotten all about that aspect of Markarov’s character until now, and all the things that man had done to him, that wasn’t what he was focusing on right now when he thought back over the dream, no. That wasn’t what was most significant about this memory.

It was the words spoken by Rostov:

He won’t remember. He’s had his memory wiped several times since what happened three years ago

The words felt significant, although he couldn’t tell why. But when he thought back over them in his mind he knew they were of the utmost importance.

Three years ago

What had happened ‘three years ago’?

This memory was in 1963, he’d been given Orders to assassinate the American President and he’d refused. It was 1963. Therefore when Rostov talked about three years ago he was talking about something that had happened in 1960.

Bucky knew deep in his bones that something significant had happened in 1960 and he had no memory of it.

What happened in 1960?

 

Monday morning found Bucky sitting across from Dr Raynor in stony faced silence, refusing to say a word. He’d not spoken since he’d arrived and sat down in his usual position on the sofa. She’d greeted him, asked him how he was, and for the ensuing twenty minutes he’d just sat and stared out of the window in silence, waiting for her to break it.

He didn’t want to be here today. He knew that today’s conversation had to be about Sam, about what had happened on Saturday, and the embarrassment and humiliation he’d felt hadn’t abated in the slightest and nor had the anger and frustration. He was angry at himself, angry at Sam, at Dr Raynor, and at the whole messy situation.

And he didn’t want to speak about Sam. As far as he was concerned Sam was now out of his life, for good, and the last thing he wanted was Christina to psychoanalyse him and share her opinions about what had happened. He wanted it out of his head completely, and he wanted instead to answer the question of what the fuck happened in 1960?

And that question continued to play on his mind as he sat opposite Christina as they both waited for each other to break the silence.  It reminded him of the first ever time he’d met with her. He’d refused to speak then too, for the longest time.

Dr Raynor hadn’t spoken either since her initial greeting, just sat opposite him and waited. She was uniquely skilled at wielding silence as a weapon, letting it linger on and on until he felt he had to be the one to break it just to stop himself from going completely crazy.

And so he did.

“What did Sam tell you?” he demanded of her, hating himself for giving in and being the one to break the silence, but it was driving him potty.

She replied instantly.

“He told me what happened,” she said.

“What happened,” he parroted back at her, his voice dripping with scorn.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Tell me what happened,” he commanded her aggressively. “Tell me what nonsense he told you.”

“He told me that you were getting upset talking about Steve and your family, and when he tried to help you he said you kissed him.”

Bucky grimaced, and shrank back.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and buried his head in his hands so he didn’t have to make eye contact with her.

“It’s okay,” she tried to reassure him. “He’s not angry, or upset. He was worried about you.”

“I’m fed up of people being worried about me,” the words exploded out of him angrily and he jumped to his feet and started to pace round the room.

“Everyone! All the time! Steve, Shuri, Ayo, Sam, you, Ross, the entire fucking government! And you! -” he pointed at her accusingly, “- you called the fucking army and cops for that!? Everyone on high alert to rush in and contain the crazy mass-murdering super-soldier because he fucked up and kissed someone. Holy…” he waved his arms in exasperation as he continued to pace round and round Christina’s chair.

“And not only that, babysitting again!? For how long? This is such a waste of…”

“James!” Christina’s voice was loud and firm and it made him still, stopping him mid-rant.

“I would like you to sit down, please.” It was worded as a polite request, but it was very much an instruction and he hated it.

Bucky glared at her.

“Why?” he asked, almost mockingly, “am I intimidating you?”

“Actually yes,” she answered.

Bucky blinked at her, and then immediately sat back down, feeling instantly remorseful and stared at his hands.

Christina took a moment to recover herself.

“I didn’t alert everyone because you kissed Sam,” she said, and he winced again as she spoke. “I put people on notice because Sam told me that you were having a panic attack, you were on the cusp of violence, and you were losing control over yourself.”

Bucky groaned again, knowing she was right and hating her for it.

“It’s okay, James,” she said, “everything worked as it should. A concern was shared, I alerted the relevant authorities, and everything then proceeded exactly as was needed. No-one was hurt, everyone responded as they should. You’re fine, James. You’re not in trouble. This protocol was put in place before you left prison and it worked.”

“Don’t use that word,” he said sharply.

I swear to God Rostov, if you say the word protocol one more time I will shoot you

An image of the red book which contained all the protocols appeared in his mind’s eye. No more protocols, he’d had enough.

She didn’t ask for clarification about what word he was objecting to, she was astute enough to figure this out, and she rephrased her sentence.

“The plan that was discussed before you left prison worked just as it should,” she repeated. “I understand you’re frightened about the consequences James, but I promise you everything worked as it should. No harm was done.”

“That’s not true is it?” he reminded her. “I hurt…”

He hung his head as he remembered the look of fear that had been on Sam’s face before he’d forcefully ejected Sam from the room. He’d grabbed Sam’s arm and thrown him through the door. He remembered trying to be careful and gentle but even just a small amount of pressure could have been enough to break bones.

What if he’d hurt him? What if he did it again?

Seeing that Sam had been afraid of him had been horrifying. He couldn’t believe what he had done, how he had behaved was completely unacceptable.

He didn’t finish the sentence but Christina knew what he was referring to.

“Sam is fine,” she assured him. “He was just concerned about you. He’s not hurt, he stressed to me that he wasn’t worried that you would hurt anyone, that he was fine. He was more worried about you hurting yourself. He said that you were screaming, and you smashed the wall.”

Bucky moaned again into his hands. He hated losing control over himself, hated that he’d done all this in front of Sam when he’d tried so hard to prove to Sam that he was doing better. He remembered he had been shouting, but he couldn’t remember how much nor how long it had lasted.

“So he told you everything did he?” he asked, unable to stop himself from sounding petulant and resentful. “Did he tell you what he called me?”

Emotionally vulnerable

The words still made anger rise up within him whenever he thought about them.

She looked confused.

“Did he say something that provoked this?” she asked, genuinely at a loss as to what Bucky was referring to. “What did he call you?”

Bucky shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her because ultimately he knew that Sam had been right, and he didn’t need to hear this from Christina as well.

“What…” he had to clear his throat and start again as the words stuck in his throat.

“What did you report to the White House when you alerted them about this?” he asked shakily. The thought that everyone in the government might know that he’d practically thrown himself at Sam was unbearably humiliating.

“I’d already pre-warned them that there might be issues this weekend,” she admitted. “You remember I was concerned on Friday that getting your items back might be upsetting for you. We were expecting something to happen.”

“But what did you tell them about why I…” he sighed. “About why I freaked out,” he mumbled.

“I said it was unclear what caused the panic attack,” she said, “but that it was likely due to a lot of heavy emotions and stress linked to you receiving a lot of reminders of the past.”

“Are you going to tell them about Sam?” Bucky asked cautiously, waiting with baited breath for her response.

She sighed.

“No,” she said clearly, and he closed his eyes as relief poured over him. She reached for her notebook and found a recent entry and began to speak, her eyes flicking down to the notebook and back up to his face as she read out from her notes.

“I have reported that you had a panic attack,” she said. “It was a distressing one which resulted in some damage to property and to yourself, but no-one else was hurt and you recovered quickly. You posed no danger to Michelle when she came to check on you and appeared calm. No further intervention was needed. They are aware that Sam was with you at the time, but he was not hurt and he called for help. The panic attack was likely a result of a combination of factors, emotional upheaval and distress, feelings of loss, and reminders of the past. They are aware that we will be discussing the triggers in our therapy sessions which will minimise the risk of future occurrences and you will have a high level of monitoring to be reviewed on a weekly basis. It was a distressing situation, but it was managed appropriately and we have moved on. That is the significant information that they need to know.”

She closed the notebook and held it out to him. He ignored it, having no interest in reading anything in there. She put it down on the table next to her.

High level of monitoring to be reviewed on a weekly basis, he thought. So the babysitting might last longer than a week. What a depressing thought, but he understood why it was necessary: he’d freaked people out; they needed reassurance. He’d play along.

“I can exercise professional discretion and autonomy about what information I choose to share and not share,” Christina continued. “The details of what happened with Sam, in my view, do not need to be shared. And I value your trust, James; I hope you believe me when I tell you that. A good therapeutic relationship is built on trust, and the last thing I want is for you to feel you cannot tell me things. And that’s why I believe it is in everyone’s best interests to keep those particular details private.”

Bucky just stared at her, completely astonished.

“Thank you,” he said, and damn it he felt like he was about to cry again. She’d asked him before to trust her, and he hadn’t thought that he could, but if she was being honest about this then she was deliberately keeping information back for the express purpose of gaining his trust.

And for the first time since he’d met her, he realised that he did, in fact, actually trust her and not just because he had to. Yes, sometimes he loathed her, and he resented his forced involvement with her, but she’d always been honest, and reliable, and she listened to him, and he’d shared really personal and excruciatingly embarrassing things with her: things he thought he’d never tell anybody.

And he told her these things because he did trust her.

And this revelation shocked him.

“That doesn’t mean, however,” she said sternly, gesturing towards him with her pen, “that you are absolved from talking about it. What happened with Sam and your feelings towards him clearly played a significant role in your panic attack and we need to explore this.”

Bucky stared at her despondently, his new feelings about trust and his gratitude towards her dissipating in an instant as his resentment and hatred rose back up to the surface. He had no desire whatsoever to share anything about what had happened with Sam. And he had absolutely no feelings for him. None at all. And if he did, well, they were all gone now weren’t they? As was Sam, now gone from his life forever. Therefore there was nothing to talk about.

From the look on her face he could tell that she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“No time like the present,” she said briskly. “Do you want a short break before we continue?”

And now he definitely hated her again.

 

 

Chapter 14: Down the Rabbit Hole

Bucky took his time during his smoke break, some part of him labouring under the delusion that if he took long enough the therapy session would come to an end and he’d be able to return home without having to endure any more of this excruciating conversation. He knew better though: Christina never let him leave until she deemed the session done, and she wanted to speak about Sam. He didn’t think there was any way out of it. There was no way to run the clock down with these sessions, Christina never seemed to have anything else to do or have anywhere else to go.

This wasn’t the first time that he wondered if she had any other clients, or if it was just him.  He could well imagine the government trying to seek a therapist who would be able to focus all her attention on him alone. It must be costing the tax payer a pretty penny, all this attention lavished on him. Was it really worth it?

He remembered the first time he’d ever met her, a week after he’d been released from the Raft.

 

 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he’d told her, the first words he’d ever spoken to her.

“Why do you think you are?” she’d asked him.

“I’m here because I’m crazy,” he’d replied, “and some deluded idiots think I can be fixed. And they think you’re the one to do it, I suppose.”

 

 

He stubbed out the cigarette and then lit a second, unwilling to go back in and face the music. He could just go in and refuse to speak, but he wasn’t very good at that. It was odd; back when he was the Winter Soldier he could spend days in silence, never saying a word, barely a thought passing through his mind, but now in therapy he couldn’t stand the silence at all. Silence hung between them, heavy and awkward and oppressive, and he always felt the desperate urge to fill it with something.

 

 

“Why you?” he’d asked Christina in that first session.

“Because I was in the army,” she’d said, “I’ve been through Hell and out the other side, and I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life helping other soldiers do exactly that.”

“And how long do I have to do this for?”

And she’d been silent then for quite a while, observing him appraisingly as she considered the best response.

“Until such time as you and I both agree that it is time to come to an end,” she’d said finally.

“And how long does that take?”

But she’d given him no answer to that.

Part of him believed he’d be coming to see her forever.

“And what happens if you fail?” he’d asked her then. “I go back to prison? I start again?”

“We won’t fail,” she’d assured him. “We’re in this together.”

 

 

And then there was the matter of the babysitting. He wanted it done.

To be reviewed on a weekly basis Christina had said.

To hell with that. He’d put up with it for a week but then it must be over. And for that to happen he had to do as he was told.

 He hated that he was back in the situation again. It had been at the end of November that he’d had his first therapy session with Christina, and now it was June. It had been over six months and looking back he really couldn’t tell that anything had changed at all. Christina said things were different, that he was doing better but considering his current situation he couldn’t see how that was possible. Six months on and he was still being babysat, he was still struggling with his memory, and he was still having ridiculous freak outs. He was a chaotic and unpredictable mess: a ticking bomb that could explode at any moment and cause immense damage.

At what point should he just throw in the towel and say enough is enough? How much longer would the government give him before they themselves felt that enough time, effort and resources had been squandered in an effort to turn him into a functional human being?

And Christina wanted to waste time talking about Sam. To Hell with that.

Back in their first session she’d assured him that he’d be in control about what they talked about.

 

 

“I’m here to help you figure out the things that matter to you. What you think is important, whatever that may be.”

“You mean to say,” he’d asked her cautiously, “that it’s up to me what I talk to you about?”

“I might have some suggestions here and there,” she’d said, “but ultimately it is up to you.”

“And if I don’t want to talk about something?”

“Then we won’t talk about it.”

And that’s when she’d suggested that they create boundaries together. She had boundaries about smoking and he had boundaries about what he didn’t want to talk about. And they’d both promised to respect each other’s boundaries.

 

 

He finished his second cigarette and went back inside to re-join Christina to finish his therapy session. There was something he wanted to talk to her about, and it wasn’t Sam. If she meant what she’d said in their very first session she should respect that surely?

He returned to his usual place on the sofa.

“I don’t want to talk about Sam,” he said. “I’m not refusing and I get that we’ll talk about it another day, but there’s something else I really want to talk about.”

It wasn’t often that he brought up topics himself for them to talk about, and it succeeded in diverting her attention.

“I’m trying to remember something,” he said.

What happened in 1960?

“And I thought that it was something that you might know about, from the documents you said you had about me.”

He took a deep breath, steeling himself, as he wasn’t sure he’d like the answer.

“What happened in 1960?” he asked her.

He expected something from her, anything. But to his dismay her face showed only blank confusion, and she shook her head.

“Those documents go no further than 1954,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”

He hadn’t known that, and his heart dropped to hear it.

“Why do you ask me about 1960?” she asked.

Bucky shook his head.

“Why bother?” he asked dispiritedly.

“Maybe if we talk through what you know, it might help,” she suggested. “We’ve done that before.”

She was right, they had. She’d pushed him before to talk about things, like his family, friends, things from his childhood, and it had succeeded in putting together the puzzle pieces in his mind. Maybe she was right; maybe she could talk him through this as she had done with the other things he’d had difficulty remembering.

“Back in 2015,” he began, “I met with…” he hesitated, suddenly unwilling to provide a name. He started again.

“In Slovenia in 2015 Hydra tracked me down,” he said. “And someone there…” he continued, deliberately being evasive, “told me that in the early 1960’s I got away from Hydra and was missing for a year.”

This has happened before you know

It had been Brock Rumlow, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. That would open up a whole other can of worms, one that he had no desire whatsoever to get anywhere close to.

 

You remember General Markarov? That idiot had decided to send you to New York of all places

You went awol. Missing for about a year. They got you back though. No matter how long you get away for, you will always be brought back

 

Bucky had then blown up a building on top of him and all the others, and left them for dead.

“And I’ve been trying to remember what happened,” he said. “Where I went, why I went, and how I got brought back.”

She considered this new information carefully.

“How do you know this was true?” she asked him. “Considering the source, I wouldn’t say it’s very reliable. Did you consider that?”

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky agreed with her. “But I had a memory that made me realise that it was actually true.”

He then told her about the dream he’d had on Saturday night. Not all of it, mind. He left out some of the more embarrassing parts. There were some things he really never wanted her to know, such as how General Markarov had treated him.

He told her what Rostov had said:

He’s had his mind wiped several times since what happened three years ago

“I went awol for a whole year,” Bucky said. “I got away from Hydra for a year and then I returned. And I can’t remember any of it.”

“Why do you need to remember it?” she challenged him.

“Because…” he said, looking around the room helplessly as if the answer might suddenly materialise in front of him. “…because it feels important.”

And wasn’t that the crux of the matter? When he’d woken from his dream he’d known that he’d learnt something significant. That something unbelievably important happened in 1960 and it was locked deep inside his brain and refused to come out, no matter how hard he tried.

“I feel like it will answer some questions,” he said, trying to explain to her why this felt so important.

“What questions?” she prompted him.

“I don’t know,” he said, and his voice gave way to his frustration. “I don’t even know what the question is, but I know there’s answers there. Something important happened in 1960 and I can’t remember it.”

He rubbed his forehead as if that would help squeeze the memory out.

“There’s so much I remember that I don’t want to,” he said. “Names and places and last words over and over again, deaths and murder, and torture, and it’s never ending. I remember blowing up hospitals, strangling children in front of their parents, and so much more… but the one thing I want to remember; the one thing that feels more important than the rest just continues to elude me.”

“Maybe there’s a reason you shouldn’t remember this,” she suggested, and he stared at her, wide-eyed, in disbelief.

“Think about it,” she said. “You said you were away from Hydra for a year and then you returned. Can you imagine going back willingly?”

He couldn’t. Some dreadful part of him, deep down, wondered if perhaps he had, but no. He knew with an unwavering certainty that he’d have had to be dragged back kicking and screaming.

“Can you imagine that your return wouldn’t have resulted in some horrific consequences for your absence?” she asked.

That’s what Rumlow had said:

I read you got quite a severe punishment

General Markarov’s voice from his dream:

I beat, fucked and zapped it out of you

He shook his head, trying to make the voices disperse.

“I can see how important this feels to you,” she said, “but we’ve spoken before about how your brain has been trying to protect you. Maybe your inability to remember this is because your brain knows you’re not ready for it. It might be harmful for you to force this.”

“What you’re saying,” Bucky said, feeling morose, “is that some things are better left buried and forgotten.”

She nodded, looking sympathetic. “At least perhaps for now,” she said. “This might be a rabbit hole that’s best left unexplored for the time being, until your brain knows you are ready for it.”

He sank back in the sofa, his body limp, feeling utterly defeated. He knew this was important, even though he wasn’t close to understanding why. And it was frustrating to hear from Christina that perhaps, once again, his brain was fucking around with him. Keeping things from him.

“I hate that,” he said honestly. “I just… How am I supposed to… I don’t know… move on, if I can’t remember these things? Sam…”

He stopped for a moment; he’d not wanted to talk about Sam, but look at that, he got brought up anyway.

“Sam keeps talking about closure,” he said, thinking back to what Sam had said about Steve.

I like to speak about him. It gives me closure

“And I didn’t understand what that meant. I still don’t, really. I looked it up, and it means that an upsetting or traumatic event has been resolved. Google said closure is an answer that is given that removes uncertainty, and gives people the resolution they need to move on.”

“And that’s what I’m trying to do, isn’t it?” he continued. “Resolve things. Move on. But how can I move on and get closure, when I can’t get the answers and I can’t remember the things I need to remember?”

“I think you’re taking a too literal reading of the definition of the word,” she told him. “Closure means different things to different people.”

“Sam says he’s getting closure about Steve’s death,” Bucky continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “But how can there be closure about that? He’s dead. How can I get closure from the things I did as the Winter Soldier? How can I get closure about what happened in Siberia?”

“What does closure look like to you?” Christina asked him. “You talk about wanting closure for Steve’s death, what do you mean when you say that?”

“Getting to tell Steve all the things I should have told him back in 1945,” he said, remembering the dream he’d had a couple of months ago when he did exactly that. Of course he’d even managed to fail to do that properly even in his dream. “That would be closure, right? Saying all the things that have been left unsaid. To apologise to him, to tell him that I was sorry I lied to him for so many years, to tell him I should have trusted him. To tell him he was being lied to by the woman he loved and the man who he saw as a father-figure.”

“But that’s not possible,” she pointed out, “you can never tell him these things.”

“I know I can’t,” he said. “And that’s the point. If that’s not possible, then it’s not possible to get closure either. And it’s the same with the rest. How can I get closure if I can’t remember the important things? If I can’t undo all the bad things I did or even ask for people’s forgiveness… How can I get closure if I can’t face the people who did this to me and ask them the questions that need to be asked?”

“What would you ask?” she asked, “if you could meet Fennhoff, Lukin or Zola now?”

Bucky had never actually thought about that before and he was struck dumb for a moment by the question.

What would he say to Fennhoff, Zola, Lukin and everyone else who’d been a part of it?

“Would you want to punish them?” Christina asked. “Vengeance? Do you want justice for what happened to you? Do you think that would bring you closure?”

Bucky didn’t really know how to answer that question, but it was all moot anyway: those people were all long dead.

“There can be no justice,” he said bitterly, “there can be no closure. Too many people long dead. Too many things left unsaid, forever. And too many things lost because I can’t remember them. You asked what closure looks like to me. That’s what it is: It’s fixing things that cannot be fixed, it’s answers to the questions I can’t even remember, and having questions that will always remain unanswered. And I know, I know, that what happened in 1960 is quite possibly one of the most important things that has ever happened to me, even though I have no idea why.”

He knew it as sure as he knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west, but he’d probably never know because who was left who could give him the answers?

“And there’s so much more,” he said. “I have so many other questions, questions I think I will never get the answers to.”

“What questions are those?” she prompted him, but he shook his head, unwilling to pull on that thread any further, because those thoughts never went anywhere good.

 

How could Peggy Carter have recruited and worked with Zola when he was known to be involved with Hydra?

How could they have released Zola after capturing him? He’d died to capture Zola and yet Carter and Phillips had released him and then recruited him. Why?

How could Hydra have grown inside SHIELD without Carter or anyone else knowing about it?
Were they incompetent or complicit?
Or perhaps just so morally grey that she and everyone else were able to look away? – Shield and Hydra had been two sides of the same coin, after all.
And how had Steve felt about it? Had he ever questioned it? Did he ever ask Peggy about it or did he avoid talking about it, to avoid uncovering anything too painful?

And then there were the questions about Howard Stark:

Had Howard known anything about Hydra?

How could Howard have worked with Zola all those decades afterwards whilst knowing what Zola had done to Bucky in Krausberg?

And another question he was almost too afraid to ask himself:

What was Howard doing with the Super Soldier Serum in 1991?

 

These questions remained on his mind long after his therapy session finished. He spent the rest of the day in the company of his babysitters wracking his brain, trying to force it to do something useful for a change. He pulled out all his notebooks and flicked through them, looking at the blank page that followed the heading: 1960. He looked at 1959, at the list of names, places and dates that he’d scribbled on those pages, but they didn’t shed any light on the things that might have happened afterwards. He looked at 1962, which was the next time he’d been dug out of his frozen slumber, but there was no indication there either about what had happened during that gap where there were no names.

Then he flicked to 1991.

16^th December 1991. Howard Stark – made to look like a car accident. Maria Stark – witness, acceptable collateral damage. Final words of Maria Stark: Howard. Final words of Howard Stark: Barnes? Buck- Sergeant Barnes?

He remembered the shock in Howard’s eyes as Howard realised who it was who had approached him. The disbelief, the confusion and then the horror as Howard realised that his old friend, back from the dead, was going to kill him.

What must have gone through Howard’s mind in that moment? Bucky wondered.

Mission: to collect the super soldier serum and kill the person who made it. Leave no witnesses. Return the serum back to Colonel Karpov. Mission successfully accomplished.

What was Howard doing with the super soldier serum?

Bucky knew where this serum had come from. It had been made from experimenting on the tortured super-soldier Isaiah Bradly, someone who Bucky had met once as the Winter Soldier. Bucky had managed to track him down recently, just to check that he was okay. The man had spent decades imprisoned by his own government, tortured and experimented upon: once again to fulfil the desperate desire everyone had to create and control super-soldiers. And it was the serum that Howard had created that had been made through Isaiah’s pain.

It takes a lot to contain a super-soldier: Isaiah’s suffering must have been immense.

How much had Howard known about that? Bucky wondered. Did he not know? It wasn’t like Howard not to ask questions. If Howard had been given the blood of a super-soldier he would have asked where it came from. Had he known but believed it was worth it for the sake of scientific progress? He’d worked with Zola after all, for decades, even knowing what he’d done to Bucky in Krausberg.  
Howard had definitely been a person who could put scientific discovery over ethics and morality.

A memory resurfaced in his mind of a conversation he’d had with Howard, a life time ago.

You almost sound as if you admire them Bucky had said to Howard, after Howard had been rhapsodising over some of Hydra’s equipment.

Hydra are many things, Howard had replied, but I’ll not deny that their technological capabilities are extraordinary. They’ve done amazing things with the tesseract.

But could Howard have overlooked real human suffering for the sake of scientific progress? Surely not?

Bucky didn’t like thinking these thoughts. It felt disrespectful to Howard to be doubting him in this way. Bucky had murdered Howard. He remembered with vivid detail the look on Howard’s face as he pummelled him to death with his metal arm. Every hit was burned into his soul. Maria’s cry of “Howard!” as she watched, bruised and injured, as her husband was battered to death before her eyes, knowing that her own death would shortly be following. He could still recall vividly the feeling of his fingers on her neck as he closed off her airway and squeezed her life out of her.

Howard had been his friend. Howard had saved his life, kept him alive, gave him a reason to carry on when all Bucky knew was misery. How could Bucky be thinking these thoughts about Howard?

Bucky pulled out his new phone that Michelle had bought for him, ignored the notifications telling him that Sam had sent him messages, and went to google and typed in Howard Stark.

This was probably a bad idea, he thought, as his eyes flickered over to his current babysitter to make sure the man wasn’t paying attention to him. It was the same man he’d had the last two nights in a row: he’d vanished after walking with Bucky to his therapy session this morning, presumably to sleep, and then returned for another night shift. As he had been the last two nights he was engrossed in his phone and not paying him any attention.

Bucky returned his attention to his own phone, now showing thousands of pages about Howard Stark. This couldn’t possibly lead anywhere good. Christina talked about not going down rabbit holes, but if he couldn’t get answers about what happened in 1960, maybe he could get some answers about Howard Stark.

He scrolled through the results. Pages and pages of links to information about Howard Stark: scientific journals, newspaper articles, magazines, symposiums he had attended, speeches he had given. Opinion pieces about war profiteering, interviews he had given about his work and inventions; biographies exploring his life, his marriage, his family, and his many many affairs with young beautiful women…

Howard had been every bit the womaniser that Bucky had pretended to be. It seemed that he’d continued to be that way even after his marriage.

From what he could see there was no mention of how Howard had really died. A couple of links led to articles talking about his death in a car accident. Bucky supposed that what had really happened had never been made public knowledge.

There were mentions of Howard’s involvement during World War Two. Steve’s name featured prominently alongside Howard’s as Bucky continued to flick through the search results. Howard Stark and Captain America… Howard Stark and Steve Rogers… Howard Stark and the Howling Commandos… Howard Stark and Bucky Barnes…

His finger hovered over his own name. He was down the rabbit hole now, he thought, no turning back.

He clicked on the link and it took him through to a YouTube video.

 

Howard Stark reveals all about Captain America, the Howling Commandos and Bucky Barnes

 

Bucky immediately stopped the video before it started playing, his eyes flickering back over to the man sitting at the table. He was still fixated on his phone with his ear buds in and not paying Bucky any attention. Bucky didn’t have any headphones. He made a mental note that he should buy some.

“Justin,” Bucky said quietly.

The man paid him no notice. Bucky repeated the man’s name, louder this time. Still no reaction. Bucky could hear the sounds of music coming out through the man’s ear buds. It must be deafening. Bucky rolled his eyes and returned his attention to his own phone.

The video was paused on a still of Howard Stark. He looked older. Not as old as he’d looked in 1991 but certainly older than when Bucky had known him. The film was in colour, grainy looking and old, but certainly not a video from the 1940's. Bucky looked at the description of the video. It was a clip taken of an interview in 1975 for the thirty year anniversary of Steve’s death.

He turned the sound up on his phone and played the video.

“Captain America…” the interviewer asked Howard, “Does the man live up to the myth?”

“Certainly,” Howard said. “I know what everyone says about him, and it’s all true. The man was every inch a hero and worthy of all the accolades given to him. He was an inspiration to all, paving the way for the allies to win the war and saving the world from Hydra.”

“And you believe he is still alive,” the interviewer asked. “You spend vast amounts of money as well as a lot of your own time searching the waters where it’s believed the plane crashed because you believe he will be found?”

“A man like Captain Rogers,” Howard said, “is not easily killed. I have no doubt that he is alive and is waiting to be found. And I will be the one to find him. I’ve dedicated my life to this.”

“This must be hard on your family,” the interviewer said. “You’ve a young son I believe. It must be hard to spend so much time away from them.”

Howard shrugged, looking like he couldn’t care less. “It’s a worthy cause. My son, he will understand. Finding Captain Rogers and bringing him home… it will be the most important thing I will ever do. He wasn’t just another soldier, or a Captain. He was more than a super-soldier. He was my friend.”

“Of course,” the interviewer said. “You worked a lot alongside him during the war didn’t you? And the Howling Commandos. I imagine you have many amazing stories to tell.”

“There are,” Howard said. “I once saw Captain Rogers destroy a tank single handedly. He could take on tens of enemy soldiers without losing his breath or taking a single hit. I built his shield out of the strongest metal on this Earth.”

“Fascinating stuff,” the interviewer said. “And the rest of the Howling Commandos? They’re all very well-known and respected war heroes.”

“Oh yes,” Howard said. “We’ve remained in touch and met up on occasion. Not very often, I’m exceedingly busy, but they ask me how the search for the Captain is progressing.”

“And of course there’s the dead war hero,” the interviewer continued, “Sergeant Barnes. There’s still a lot of public interest in him. Exciting story: Captain America’s brother, his heroic rescue and how he died for his country. Perhaps you could tell us more about him?”

Howard noticeably hesitated on the video.

“I didn’t have much to do with anyone other than Captain Rogers,” he said. “I barely knew Sergeant Barnes. Only met him once or twice, and that was just to talk about the war, equipment and so on and on.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I couldn’t tell you anything of interest.”

“But what about…?” the interviewer began to ask as Bucky closed the video and slowly lowered the phone onto his lap.

 

Well, he thought. That hurt. A lot.

He swallowed and blinked several times, trying to maintain control, trying not to let his eyes water.

I barely knew Sergeant Barnes

Bucky wiped at his eyes and made sure that Justin, over at the table, still wasn’t paying him any attention.

Memory after memory played out in Bucky’s mind of all the times he and Howard had spent together.

He remembered the very first time he’d met Howard, launching himself across the room to shake Howard’s hand, beaming at him, practically gushing over him. Howard had been a celebrity and Steve knew him. It had been one of the most exciting days of his life, the day Howard had given Steve the shield.

That is made from the rarest material in the world Howard had said to Steve and I can’t imagine a more worthy person to have it than you

He remembered Howard recruiting him to help him out in his laboratory. Bucky had spent much of his down time following Howard around, making notes, and learning so much. He remembered all those evenings going out drinking with Howard, helping Howard pick up girls, and Howard bragging about his conquests with Rita Hayworth and Hedy Lemarr.

Howard had made the world seem so big and exciting, talking about the future, about aliens and robots and technology and all manner of thrilling and wondrous things. Bucky hadn’t understood half the things Howard talked about sometimes, but it hadn’t mattered. Howard’s enthusiasm was infectious.

He remembered Howard telling him that the tesseract may indeed have come from another planet, left here by aliens.

Stories of gods and magic have to come from somewhere Howard had said

And they came here and pretended to be gods? Bucky had asked sceptically

Maybe they didn’t mean to, Howard had replied, Maybe that’s just what people remembered them as, long after they were gone

How right he’d been, Bucky thought, but he’d not lived long enough to find that out.

Then there had been the time he and Howard had ‘borrowed’ one of Schmidt’s cars that the SSR had requisitioned from a Hydra base. Dugan and Dernier had accompanied him and Howard on their subversive road trip to retrieve some plans that had been stolen from Howard.

He remembered sitting in the car with Howard, waiting for Dugan and Dernier to return. Howard promised to build Bucky a flying car, to give him a job when the war was over, told him off for smoking, criticised his driving, and then told Bucky how amazing the future would be.

The 21^st Century will be an amazing place Bucky, Howard had said And you and I will live to see it

Bucky’s vision went blurry as his eyes watered and he massaged his forehead viciously as if this could push the memories, the tears and the feelings away. He needed these memories to stop. They hurt too much.

All of those memories and experiences, and many more besides; all that friendship and solidarity cast aside, discarded, summed up in those five words:

I barely knew Sergeant Barnes…

Bucky felt sick as he mentally replayed Howard’s words from the video.

Howard had lied. Why had Howard lied?

Maybe he had to Bucky thought, remembering all the times Christina had told him about how the brain makes efforts to protect itself. Maybe the truth was too painful

And for the first time he wondered what it must have been like for Howard to hear that Bucky had fallen to his death. He’d never considered it before, as thoughts about Howard were generally shoved away into a little corner of his mind and he never let them out.

What must it have been like for Howard to hear of Bucky’s death after all they’d been through together? Howard had known things about Bucky that no-one else had ever known, not even Steve, and Howard had also shared personal, private details of his own life with Bucky that he’d never shared with anyone, and possibly never shared with anyone since. It must have been devastating for him. Maybe he’d felt guilty, responsible in a way because of all the things that had happened leading up to that day.

The day before he’d fallen from the train he’d told Howard that Zola had experimented on him at Krausberg with the super-soldier serum, that the serum had had some effect on him, even though it hadn’t made him like Steve. Howard had encouraged him to tell Steve about it, and Bucky was going to, but he’d fallen from the train before he’d got the opportunity.

Bucky remembered how much distress he’d been in. He’d been a mess. He’d been frightened of what plans Phillips and Carter had for him, terrified that Zola would tell them what he’d done to Bucky in Krausberg, and petrified at the possibility of Steve finding everything out.

But Howard had helped him through it, told him to trust Steve, told him everything would be fine.

And then Bucky had made the catastrophic decision to wait, to speak to Steve after they’d captured Zola, because they’d just had an argument and Bucky couldn’t bear the thought of facing Steve just yet.

And then after all that Howard had been told the very next day that Bucky had died.

It must have been so horrible for him.

Steve had told Bucky, during one of their few interactions in Wakanda, that Howard had gone to find Bucky’s body. After Bucky had fallen from the train, Steve had gone off to face Schmidt while Howard had collected a group of his assistants and flown to Switzerland to find Bucky’s body. Of course he’d been unsuccessful, and Hydra had got to Bucky before Howard could.

Howard must have realised, Bucky thought, that there was a chance Bucky had survived the fall. Howard had known what no-one else had, that Bucky had been given the serum. Howard hadn’t been looking for Bucky’s body. He’d been looking for Bucky alive.

And he’d never told anyone this. He’d kept all of that secret.

He remembered a conversation he’d had with Howard, talking about how they would manage when the war was over:

We recover, Howard had said and like our fathers before us we spend the rest of our lives never telling anyone the things we did

Was that the answer as to why Howard had lied? Was the truth so traumatic and horrible that Howard had kept it buried deep all those years?

What a heavy burden it must have been, Bucky thought, the weight of all those secrets and lies. It made this lie seem understandable, even though the hurt still remained.

And then when Howard saw Bucky again, in 1991 as the Winter Soldier come to kill him, Howard must have realised in his last moments what that meant. What thoughts must have gone through Howard’s head from the moment of realisation to the moment of his death? Had Howard heard rumours of the fabled Winter Soldier? Had he seen Bucky’s face and the metal arm and realised what that meant: that Hydra had got to him before Howard had? That Bucky had been alive all this time? Did he think that he was to blame?

And those questions again:

How much had Howard known about Hydra?

How could he have worked with Zola?

What was he doing with the super soldier serum?

Bucky tapped on his phone with his metal fingers and took several deep calming breaths.

This absolutely had been a rabbit hole he should never have gone down. It had done nothing to sate his burning curiosity, had answered none of his questions – not only that, it had just created more questions. And it had only left him feeling unfulfilled, hurt and disappointed, keenly feeling the sorrow of all that lost opportunity. And regret. Above all there was regret.

And there was annoyance that once again Christina had been absolutely right: some things were best left buried and forgotten.

Notes:

I’m keeping in Isaiah Bradly, but obviously the year of when they met needs to change. I’ve decided to move their meeting to the Vietnam War in 1971 rather than 1951, as in this story Bucky was still in Siberia in 1951. I’d already made up my mind about the timeline of Bucky’s early Siberia years before we met Isaiah in the show and I was unwilling to change it. But I don’t want to leave Isaiah’s story out, I respect his story immensely, so I decided to just change when those events take place. All the key features of Isaiah’s story remain exactly the same though so I hope this isn’t disrespectful.

Bucky talks about closure in this chapter, I very strong feel that in the show it is this kind of mindset that led him to wanting to make amends, and Dr Raynor supported him to do that in a safe way rather than telling him not to do it. I still don’t like the amends however you look at them, so they don’t exist in this story. I have my own version of this story line which will start to be introduced in a few chapters, and I’ve also kept Yori (who we meet next chapter) because that whole story line leads to some wonderful angst which is just too good to pass up. The next few chapters take us to quite a dark place, I’m afraid.

Chapter 15: Acceptable Collateral Damage

Notes:

Timeline: I'm uncertain of when exactly the events of TFATWS take place, I know it is over the Summer of 2024. So I have decided that they take place roughly end July / early August. This story then ends a few months after the events of the series about October 2024. So where we are at right now in this chapter is round end of June 2024. I'm being deliberately vague as it hurts my brain trying to work this out. But we are a few weeks away in story from the events of TFATWS kicking off. If I ever go back an edit I might sort this all out properly.

Also, while I left out the amends I still wanting Yori's story in here because I love it. But I had to think about how Bucky and Yori must have met. In the series I am sure that Bucky tracked Yori down as part of seeking amends but I couldn't do that, so I decided to make their meeting a coincidence. Strange coincidences like this certainly can happen in real life and I really couldn't think of any other way to do it.

Content warning for this chapter: there is self-harming and it is the most graphic I have ever written it. I don't think it's too explicit but it's very clear what is happening.

Acceptable Collateral Damage

 

Bucky managed to persuade Christina to end the constant babysitting after only a week had passed by since the incident with Sam. He did this by behaving himself – no nonsense, no engaging in challenging behaviour and he endured her, admittedly futile, efforts to get him to talk about Sam and he was rewarded with Christina agreeing to step down the monitoring the following Monday.

He shared very little detail with Christina about what had actually happened with Sam, and she soon gave up asking. She knew Bucky well enough by now to know that to push for more information here would only serve to alienate him. She’d figured out that the main catalyse of Bucky’s freak out (as he described it) was whatever it was Sam had called him – emotionally vulnerable and it still made Bucky cringe to think of it - and no force on Earth could compel Bucky to voice those words out loud.

“There’s no point,” he told her. “I’m not speaking to him anymore. He’s gone.”

That wasn’t entirely true, as Sam had continued to reach out to him, but Bucky had spent the entire week ignoring all his messages, swiping away the notifications every time they popped up with barely a glance at the content. He’d considered blocking Sam’s number but something inside him rebelled violently against this, so he’d instead opted to just ignore the messages.

Christina called him out on this.

“That’s incorrect,” she pointed out. “You said he’s been sending you messages. Why do you think that is?”

Bucky shrugged. He genuinely had no idea why Sam continued to waste his energy bothering with him.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “he wants to be sure that you’re okay. He’s your friend, and friends tend to care about each other’s wellbeing.”

Bucky shook his head. “He’s not my…” he began, but he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, unable to say that Sam wasn’t his friend. To be sure he didn’t know what Sam was, or wasn’t. Or what Sam had even been, or what he wanted Sam to be to him. His feelings about Sam perplexed and worried him, and it was far easier not to spare him any more thought.

“He’s better off without me,” Bucky then said. “I just cause trouble for everyone.”

“He clearly doesn’t think that,” Christina said. “He’s being trying to contact you. He values your friendship and wants it to continue.”

“Well, I can’t think why,” Bucky said. “He’s got other people.”

As he said this he realised that he wasn’t actually sure about Sam’s friendships with other people. Apart from Sam’s family he didn’t know if there was anyone that Sam actually spent time with on a sociable basis, as in someone he was close friends with rather than work friends or neighbours. Sam had been an Avenger, he’d had friendships there. But many of them were dead and some were missing, or off in space. And the rest? He thought back to what little he knew of the Avengers. There’d been conflict between a lot of them, and Sam never knew many of them very well – not to the point where one would call them friends, the point where one would share personal and intimate details of one’s life to another person, as Sam and Bucky had already done with each other.

“Maybe,” Christina said, as if she could read Bucky’s thoughts, “he needs your friendship just as much as you need his.”

 Bucky shook his head and stared out of the window, clearly signalling that this was no longer a thread he wanted pulled.

“Perhaps if you were to tell me more about what happened,” she persevered, attempting once again to prise more detail from him about The Incident, “we might be able to properly explore this, and find a way for you to move on.”

“By doing what?” Bucky snapped at her. “Your sodding critical incident analyses and role play?”

He hated all these pointless tasks that Christina often subjected him to. Role play made his skin crawl he hated it so much. Her ‘critical incident analyses’ were similarly excruciatingly embarrassing as they tended to involve going over and over again an incident in detail, and exploring ways things could have been done differently.

“You’ve expressed that you are willing to eradicate your friendship with Sam completely, this seems like a completely disproportionate response to the situation,” she told him, “and if you told me what actually happened in full, who said what, we could understand and explore this properly without you rushing to end what has been a very good and positive friendship.”

 “No,” he said firmly, shutting down this conversation for the last time. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to think about Sam anymore. It’s done with.”

And it was. Kind of. Because Sam still sent messages over the following fortnight, but they became less frequent as the days passed without any response. He tried calling once and Bucky stared at Sam’s name on his phone as it rang and seriously considered answering the phone, before it rang out. Sam then left a voicemail which Bucky deleted without listening to.

During this time Bucky threw himself into trying to make improvements to his life. He felt that the incident with Sam represented a massive leap backwards, but he tried not to let it demoralise him completely. He spent time organising his possessions he’d received from the museum. He put up a couple of bookcases for his books, a shelf for Steve’s sketch books. He wasn’t sure what to do about the photographs and letters as they caused too much emotional pain, so he shoved them in the box with his father’s gun, and his own military attire and medals and hid it behind the television. He mentally labelled this box as things I don’t know what to do with.

Sorting out his books made him remember just how much he had liked reading when he was younger, and there was a whole 80 years of published works for him to catch up on. He discovered a library in walking distance and started going there almost every day for several hours, just sitting in a corner and devouring book after book. It started to become quite a nice routine actually, an hour walk to the library every morning – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it would be after therapy, and the library was shut on Sundays – staying there until it closed at 5pm, and then walking slowly back, pausing about half way to have a smoke on a bench in an abandoned bus shelter that he’d taken cover under once when it had been raining. Then he’d get home, agonise over whether it was worth trying to eat something, and then spend the evening browsing Wikipedia with the television on and smoking while waiting to fall asleep.

Occasionally he’d remember something new and he would spend time with his notebooks trying to recall dates, locations, and names. And he always had nightmares.

It was three weeks after the incident with Sam when Bucky’s embargo on communication with Sam finally came to an end, although it wasn’t a positive interaction and it didn’t last for very long. Bucky was returning back from the library and stopped in his usual place to have a cigarette at about the half way point, reclining on the bench.

One of the things Bucky loved about the 21^st Century was how despised smoking generally was amongst the general population. If you wanted people to ignore you and stay away from you, as he so often did, just light up a cigarette and people would generally give you a wide berth, usually throwing disgusted glances as they did so.

It was brilliant.

Back in his day – and didn’t that make him feel old? – smoking had been such a sociable activity. Lighting up a cigarette was generally an invitation for everyone to swarm around, and was a way of making friends, a conversation starter. Everyone smoked. Well, Steve had never smoked, but that was because he’d always complained that it made him cough. At the time that had seemed ridiculous but Bucky now knew that thankfully Steve had made the right decision. But apart from Steve, everyone he’d ever known had engaged in smoking. But now it was so unpopular, almost universally hated, that it served as an effective people deterrent, and this suited him just fine.

Bucky was lighting up his third cigarette when his phone rang, displaying Sam’s name across the screen, and he almost answered it. He had to give credit to Sam for his persistence, he thought, once the phone had rung out. Anyone else would have given up by now, but Sam certainly had a stubborn streak to him.

Maybe he needs your friendship just as much as you need his

And then a message popped up, and Bucky found himself reading it before he even realised he had opened it up.

Please ring me, we really need to talk. It’s important. It’s not about what happened last time, it’s something else.

And this piqued Bucky’s curiosity.

I’m out he typed back. Talk in 40 minutes

He then paused, finger poised over the ‘send’ button, heart pounding in his chest. Was he really ready to resume communication with Sam? Would it be right to do so? He’d been avoiding Sam partly because of how humiliated Sam had made him feel, but that hadn’t been the whole reason. He still vividly remembered grabbing Sam by the arm and ejecting him forcefully from the apartment, the look of wariness and fear he’d seen in Sam’s eyes. He never wanted to see Sam afraid of him again, he never wanted Sam put in a situation where Bucky might hurt him.

He values your friendship and wants it to continue.

He sent the message, and then stared blankly at his phone, his heart and mind still racing, as he considered how he could possibly manage a conversation with Sam. They’d have to talk about what happened - The Incident - and he felt woefully unprepared for this. He was almost starting to regret his constant refusals to engage in Christina’s role play suggestions which might have helped him to find the words that would be needed for him to survive this conversation.

He’d have to get moving if he wanted to be back in time to speak to Sam in the timeframe he’d given. He was just finishing his cigarette when he heard a sudden commotion coming from behind him.

Two people were arguing. A common occurrence when walking around the city and it would have completely passed his notice had a name not been spoken which awakened a feeling of intense and horrifying familiarity which he really couldn’t place.

“You don’t call me old man,” a voice said, in heavily accented English, “my name is Mr Nakajima.”

Bucky shot up to a sitting position at the sound of this name, and turned to find the source of the arguing. An old Japanese man appeared to be embroiled in an argument with a younger man about his bins.

Bucky knew that name Nakajima from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it. But he knew that if he remembered a name it probably wasn’t for a good reason. He stared at the man, trying to force his brain to fit together the pieces to work out who this man was, and why he knew this name.

The old man was in a state of distress, babbling now in Japanese at the younger man whose impatience and annoyance was clear to see, as he pushed the offending bin to the other side of the alleyway between two apartment buildings. Bucky watched as the jostle caused the old man to trip and hit his head against the wall. The younger man grabbed Nakajima by the arm, presumably to steady him, but the older man misinterpreted the younger man’s actions as hostile and lashed out.

Bucky was on his feet before he could stop himself, rushing over and positioning himself between the two men effectively preventing any further violence.

“He’s crazy,” the younger man said, gesturing at Nakajima who had his hands pressed tightly against his forehead. Bucky saw blood trickling through his fingers.

“Just leave,” Bucky told the younger man who, upon noticing the blood, swore and swiftly vanished.

 Bucky turned to the old man who was still muttering in Japanese, obviously still in distress. His head was bleeding.

“Are you all right?” Bucky asked him. He spoke in Japanese which made the older man startle, and he looked at him like he had only just realised Bucky was there.

“You speak Japanese?” the man asked in bewilderment.

“It’s Mr Nakajima, right?” Bucky asked him. “Can I help you?”

“Can you help me back to my home?” Mr Nakajima asked. “In here.” He gestured towards the building.

Bucky nodded, and offered his arm to the old man who leaned on him.

“You can call me Yori,” the man said, in English now, as they walked. “That man said I’m crazy, but I’m not. That’s my bin. I’m not crazy.”

“I know,” Bucky told him. And then: “My name’s James.”

When they reached Yori’s apartment, Yori collapsed onto a chair.  

“Do you have a first aid kit?” Bucky asked him, eyeing his head wound anxiously. This man looked like he could be in his late 80s; a head wound could finish him off. “You’ve got a bit of a wound there,” he continued, gesturing at Yori’s forehead. “Maybe we should get you to a hospital.”

Yori shook his head and directed Bucky to the bathroom where he had a box with some medical supplies which Bucky located.

“It’s not that bad actually,” Bucky told him, after sorting him out, “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but I don’t think you should be alone overnight, you might have concussion.”

Yori nodded and asked Bucky to fetch him a glass of water. And it was on his way back to Yori, glass of water in hand, when he saw it.  

On some shelves by the entrance to the kitchen was a shrine – lit candles, incense, and a photograph of a young Japanese man. Clearly this was a shrine to the dead. And Bucky recognised this man as soon as he saw the photograph, and his insides froze.

Witness was his first thought

And then

Acceptable collateral damage

Don’t leave witnesses. Never leave witnesses.

He remember a voice reading names

Jones

Anderson

Nakajima

Acceptable collateral damage

That’s why the name had seemed familiar when he’d heard it earlier. He should have realised this would be the reason why.

He’d held a gun to that man’s head

Please

The man had said

I didn’t see anything

But he had, he’d been a witness and therefore he’d had to die. And Bucky had pulled the trigger and shot him dead, because that is what he was supposed to do.

Jones

Anderson

Nakajima

Who had that been, reading the names? Alexander Pierce? No, more likely it had been Rumlow – running through the list of casualties during his mission debrief.

 The intended target; and the collateral damage. There had been more than one innocent life taken that day. Jones ,Anderson, Nakajima. Maybe others.

He’d forgotten Nakajima. That name wasn’t in his notebook.

He couldn’t move, remained standing there staring at the photograph in horror, as all these memories and thoughts swirled round and round in his head. Dimly he realised that Yori had come up close behind him and he turned to face him with wide eyes, the familiar feeling of a panic starting to build itself up from somewhere deep inside him.

“That’s my son,” Yori told him, pointing at the photograph. “He was killed twenty years ago last year.”

Bucky didn’t respond. He couldn’t.

“He was working abroad and he was killed,” Yori continued, seemingly oblivious to Bucky’s state of shock.

Bucky swallowed, mentally willing himself to remain calm. He couldn’t afford to freak out here. Not like this.

“What happened?” he managed to choke out, his voice shaky.

“Wrong place at the wrong time, they said,” Yori said, and while his voice was calm and steady his eyes conveyed his sadness and grief. “I don’t know what happened. I will never know what happened to him.”

It took every ounce of self-will he had not to fall apart then and there, right in front of Yori.

Wrong place wrong time

Witness – acceptable collateral damage

Never leave witnesses

He couldn’t stay here. He was seconds away from freaking out.

Bucky pushed the glass of water into Yori’s hand.

“I uh, I should go,” he muttered. “I have somewhere to be.”

“Oh,” Yori looked disappointed.

Bucky quickly stepped towards the door, and then stopped.

“Let me give you my number,” he told Yori, and scribbled it down on paper that Yori passed him. His hand shook as it wrote, the thick glove already making it difficult to write, and he hoped that the numbers were legible.

“Call me if you need anything,” Bucky said. “Anything at all, any time. Please.”

And then he fled.

He threw himself down the five flights of stairs, out the back exit and jogged down several streets before turning down into an empty alleyway. He collapsed heavily onto the ground, and buried his head in his hands, trying to control his breathing and his thoughts. His mind was back then, shooting dead an innocent man who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Oh god,” he moaned into his hands. How much there was that he had still not yet remembered. There was so much murder already in his notebooks, and this was a fierce reminder that there was still more to be discovered.

When would it ever end? Could it ever end?

And that old man had lost his son because of him. He’d caused a lot of fathers to lose their sons and a lot of children to lose their parents. And to meet him like this – it was horrible.

He focused on his breathing. He could get himself back in control. This was what Christina had been helping him with, he knew how to ground himself, and he knew how to calm himself down. He could do this. He rested his head on his knees and took deep breaths.

And then his phone rang and he rushed to answer it thinking it might be Yori ringing him already: maybe he needed help, maybe he had concussion, maybe he suddenly realised what Bucky’s reaction meant and put two and two together and was ringing him to accuse him and demand retribution.

He answered but found he couldn’t speak, completely paralysed by his intense emotional state.

“Bucky?”

Oh God, Bucky suddenly thought. It’s Sam. He suddenly remembered the message he’d sent to Sam just before he got himself embroiled with Yori Nakajima. Had it been 40 minutes? It felt like it had been hours.

His distress turned into anger, this was the last thing he needed right now.

“What!?” he barked furiously down the phone.

 “It’s Sam,” Sam said, and he sounded uneasy.                                            

“I know it’s you Sam, it’s says your damn name on the phone,” Bucky said, his anger rising with every passing second.

“You don’t sound good, Bucky,” Sam remarked carefully, “are you okay?”

“What do you want, Sam?” Bucky demanded, ignoring the question.

“There’s something I think we need to talk about,” Sam said. “It’s about the sh…”

Bucky cut Sam off before he could finish his sentence; his rage at boiling point now and all hope at maintain any semblance of self-control was completely lost.

“There is nothing for us to talk about,” he was speaking even louder now, almost shouting.

“Stop calling me!” and this was a shout.

He hung up the phone. 

That was the final straw.

His head was racing, full to the brim of all these different emotions and he had no chance of getting them under control now. There were just too many feelings, overwhelming him, paralysing him. All the feelings of guilt, sorrow and remorse that had emerged from meeting with Yori coupled with the feelings of humiliation, anger, and loss that Sam had evoked in him. It was too much to contain. He could tell that he was moments away from losing himself entirely and he was in public.

He couldn’t freak out here. He mustn’t.

One coherent thought managed to make its way out of the noise.

He needed to get home.

He was too exposed here, anyone could come across him, and he did not feel in control of himself at all. The tenuous grasp he had managed to reclaim of his self-control after his encounter with Yori was slipping away from him following the conversation with Sam. He needed to get home and he needed to do something. He needed pain. He needed punishment.

He pulled himself back to his feet and ran.

Bucky had no recollection of his journey back to his apartment; he just knew that he was running. He was sure to have drawn attention as well, as he made no effort to run slowly. He was too much in a mindless panic to hold himself back, to mask the super-soldier, all he could think was that he needed to get home.

He burst into his apartment, almost ripping the door off its hinges in his mindless fury, and hurtled himself over to the little cupboard that he kept by the television which he’d bought to contain his notebooks. He wrenched open the drawers and pulled out the notebooks. The drawers broke apart from the force of his pull but he barely noticed, so intently focused he was on his task.

The notebooks were all neatly labelled with dates on the front covers, and he searched through them, discarding them haphazardly on the floor around him as he looked. At some point he discarded his gloves as well as they made it difficult to sort through the notebooks. And there was the one he was looking for. The label read 2000 - 2010, detailing his memories of the first decade of the millennium.

Twenty years ago he thought, and he turned the pages to 2004. But there was nothing there.

No, he reminded himself twenty years ago last year

He flicked back to 2003.

Jones he’d written. Anderson.

And

? – Japanese

That was Yori’s son.

A question mark.

This was a life. A life he’d brutally ended – and all he’d bothered to write and remember was a question mark and the man’s ethnicity.

With a shaking hand he wrote Nakajima on the page. He suddenly realised that he didn’t even know the man’s first name. He should have asked. Why hadn’t he asked?

He pummelled his forehead with his fists and some awful noise left him – a moan, a whine, a sob or perhaps a mixture of the three.

He’d fled like a coward; he should have asked Yori the exact date, and his son’s name. He didn’t know either of those things.

He remembered his final words though. He added them to the page.

I didn’t see anything

And

Please

This man had deserved better.

He’d begged for mercy but it had been pointless. The Winter Soldier knew no mercy. There was only the mission and the protocols.

Never leave witnesses

And so he didn’t.

There was no grief back then, no remorse, no sense of guilt for the lives he had taken. He’d been only a Soldier, following orders. Never questioning. Just blind obedience.

He didn’t feel those things then, but he did now.

“Because I’m human,” he said to himself. “I am human. I’m a person; I’m not a weapon. I’m not a mindless killing machine, and I do feel remorse, and sorrow and guilt.”

But you were once a nasty little voice spewed into his brain you killed this poor young man without remorse, without care and forgot all about it. Just like all the rest.

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered the critical voice, “it wasn’t my choice.”

You still did it the critical voice said.

“They made me,” Bucky said, trying hard to follow Christina’s advice and not give in to the Critical Voice.

Be kind to your past self she had said.

“Hydra took away my autonomy,” he said weakly, “it wasn’t me. Not really.”

What difference does that make to Yori? the critical voice said.

And he knew that nasty little critical voice was right. Whether he meant to or not, whether he was in control or not made no difference at all. Yori’s son was still dead. He’d still murdered him.

Any why did that happen? The critical voice continued. Because you were weak. Because you gave up. Again and again and again. It’s all you ever did. It’s all you ever do. Give in. And you murdered this young man. You’ve murdered so many.

Names and faces and last words played out over and over again in his mind. He was fighting a losing battle here and he knew it.

You were so brutal and violent. And always so compliant. Such a good soldier

He felt his eyes water and he pressed his fists into his eyes so hard it hurt and caused him to see spots. He wouldn’t cry. He had no right to cry, he had no right to feel sorry for himself. This wasn’t his grief, this wasn’t his loss; this was his crime. And he’d never been properly punished for it.

He’d whined to Christina about trying to get closure, like he’d been the one wronged. Where was Yori’s closure? Where was justice for Yori? What would Yori feel knowing that the man who murdered his son was not only free without punishment, but had also been paid a significant amount of money? What about everyone else – all the other friends and family of the people he’d killed over the years? Where was their justice? Where was their closure?

And here he was, free as a bird, living his life and whining about all the bad things that had happened to him.

How dare you the critical voice said,

How dare you feel sorry for yourself? You deserve nothing more than all the pain and horror you’ve inflicted upon so many people. But instead you’ve been rewarded. And you’ve allowed yourself to feel like you’re the injured party. You’re not the victim here. They are.

There was a knife attached to the underside of the couch, Bucky remembered suddenly. He’d hidden it there weeks ago, back when Christina’s babysitters had been regularly searching his apartment. Unlike the knives next to the sink this one was sharp. Very sharp.

He located it, pulled it out, and sat up, leaning against the couch. The critical voice in his head continued to disparage him, repeating his guilt over and over again, along with the memory of Yori Nakajima’s son pleading with him not to kill him.

How he loathed himself.

He ripped off his shirt and his metal fingers seemed to move of their own accord, wrapping themselves around the handle of the knife and pressing the sharp tip against the flesh of his right arm. He paused for a brief moment, trying to silence the critical voice urging him to do it, trying to summon up the will power to drop the knife and instead call Christina and ask for help.

And then he attacked himself. Again and again. All the while that critical voice told him that he deserved this pain, that he deserved not only this punishment but far far worse.

There was so much blood and pain but it was right.  

And then it was over.

When it was done, when the adrenaline had left him, he dropped the knife and collapsed into the pool of blood.

There now. It was done. He felt strangely free. Relieved. He had held back for so long, repressed his desire for pain and punishment that now it was done, he felt released.

And then shame and regret crept up on him, and overwhelmed him. He’d been doing better. He’d not done anything like this for weeks. Suddenly the reality of what he had just done hit him like a tonne of bricks.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and reached for his phone. He felt light headed and dizzy. His right arm was bleeding freely and he gazed in numb shock at the lacerations adorning it, that he’d caused.

He located Dr Raynor’s name on his phone and pressed the call button.

She answered swiftly.

“What’s up James?” she asked him. She would know something was wrong by the very fact that he had called her. He never called her.

He tried to speak but all that came out of him was a strangled sob.

“Where are you?” she asked him, sounding more than a little alarmed.

He tried to speak again, but suddenly now he was crying. And not just crying; heaving sobs poured out of him and he couldn’t stop them.

“Are you at home?” she asked him.

Bucky inhaled deeply, and managed for a brief moment to get himself under control.

“Yeah,” he choked out, but he couldn’t manage any more than that.

“I’m calling for help,” she said. “Tell me what’s happening. Talk to me.”

He thrust the phone away from him, ending the call as he did so, and buried his head in his arms and the tears and sobs just continued to pour out of him. He didn’t think he’d ever cried so much in his entire life.

He could see the cuts on his arm already showing signs of healing. It was too soon. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t enough, he realised. One butchered arm that would heal perfectly in less than eight hours wasn’t nearly enough to atone for his crimes carried out over seven decades.  He needed to do more.

In an almost dreamlike trance he reached out for the knife again. His arm was done, but there was more he could do. His body and legs remain untouched. This was unacceptable.

He adjusted the knife in his metal fingers, took a deep breath, and continued.

 

Chapter 16: Crazy James Barnes, All Messed Up

Notes:

FYI - I know nothing about American hospitals and medical stuff in general. If this chapter is unrealistic in any way, let's just go along with it...

Crazy James Barnes, All Messed Up

 

 

When Bucky woke he knew instantly, without opening his eyes, that he was somewhere new. He felt a sudden burst of panic as he realised he was somewhere unfamiliar, but he managed to remain with his eyes closed; feigning sleep, as he listened and tried to gauge what was going on around him.

He was in a bed. Why was he in a bed? He didn’t sleep in a bed.

There was no-one nearby. He couldn’t hear any footsteps or breathing, or anything else that would indicate that someone was in the room with him.

He wasn’t strapped down or restrained in anyway.

In the distance he could hear a phone ringing, the beeping of machines and his eyes shot open as he realised where he was.

He was in a hospital.

Suddenly the memory of what had happened came roaring back. After ringing Christina and bawling down the phone at her he’d decide to attack himself even more. With alarming ferocity he’d struck at himself again, and again, and again until he found himself falling into unconsciousness. He remembered hoping that he’d never wake up, that maybe he’d finally succeeded in bypassing that annoying block on his brain that stopped him from killing himself. Guess not.

Christina must have rung for help, and he’d been found and brought to a hospital.

For heaven’s sake.

His stomach lurched as he raised a hand to his neck to find that his dog-tags were no longer there. In a panic he launched himself off the bed as if shot, and scrabbled frantically at the bed linen, hoping that maybe they had just fallen off. They must be here somewhere, they had to be.

It was then that he noticed that he was wearing a hospital gown. He swore silently as he looked around the room for some proper clothes.

He saw them, on a cabinet in the corner of the room, next to a chair. These were not the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d been cutting himself to pieces, but they were his clothes; whoever had brought him must have grabbed them. His phone was there as well and - oh thank God! - his dog tags.

He held them in his fingers for a moment as relief flooded him, tracing the letters that spelt out his name. He didn’t care about anything else, but he was mildly surprised and gratified to see that whoever had brought his clothes and phone had also brought a half empty pack of cigarettes and his lighter with them. He hung his dog tags back round his neck where they belonged.

It was only then that he took the time to properly consider his surroundings. He was definitely in a hospital, a private room. He looked out of the window, it was night-time. Lights illuminated the carpark below, and there were a few people walking around outside. His turned on his phone which told him that it was just after 11pm and still the same day. It had been about five hours since he’d attempted to cut himself to shreds.

He quickly checked the door; it wasn’t locked. It didn’t appear that anyone had noticed that he’d woken up. That suggested to him that there was no surveillance in the room, else someone would have surely come in by now, given that he was awake.

He wasn’t going to stay here. He took off the gown and started to pull on his clothes.

He groaned as he noticed the stitches in his arm. They’d given him stitches? This is what happens when people provide treatment to a super soldier without having the first clue about what they were doing. He’d have to pull them out sooner rather than later, otherwise it would just cause more problems. He muttered swear words under his breath as he finished getting dressed and shoved his possessions in his trouser pockets.

 He then returned to the door and listened carefully. He couldn’t hear anyone outside. In fact, he realised with a sudden chill feeling of dread, it was too quiet on the other side of the door. Far too quiet for a hospital. Even though it was after 11 at night he would have expected a hospital to sound busier.

He flung open the door and, after seeing there was no-one around, made his way to the double doors at the end of the ward, under a ‘Way Out’ sign. He tugged at the doors which stood resolutely closed. Of course they were locked.

He stepped back and considered his options. He could just pull the door open regardless, but that probably wouldn’t be the best move for him. He was already in a precarious situation as it was, without having to add criminal damage to the mix.

As he surveyed the door, considering what to do, he heard footsteps approach.

“Mr Barnes?”

He shot round.

There were two men approaching him. One of them was clearly a doctor; in scrubs and a white coat, a stethoscope round his neck, and looking petrified. The other man screamed government official judging from his black suit and tie, and the briefcase he clutched in his right hand.

“I’m leaving,” Bucky said. “Open the doors.”

The doctor shot a frightened glance at the other man and stepped back, clearly abdicating the responsibility of sharing bad news to this other man.

The man in black shifted his briefcase in his hands and held out his right hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky ignored it.

“Mr Barnes,” the man said, “let me introduce myself. I am…”

“I don’t care,” Bucky rudely interrupted.

“Right,” the man said. He withdrew his hand and fiddled with his tie instead.

“I’m afraid you can’t leave until you are discharged,” he said.

“Then I’m discharging myself,” Bucky said without missing a beat.

“I’m afraid not,” the man in black said.

Bucky sighed and closed his eyes, willing himself to remain calm. He had to behave. He had to do as he was told.

He was struck again by how quiet it was in the hospital ward, how absent of people it was and the general hustle and bustle that one usually expected in a hospital.

“Where is everyone?” he asked.

The man looked around.

“Yes,” he said, “we cleared the place out for you. Just a precaution, you understand.”

Bucky stared at him in horrified disbelief.

“You cleared out the hospital because of me?” he asked.

“No, no,” the man said hurriedly, “just this ward.”

The sign next to the door read Oncology

They’d cleared out a cancer ward because of him? Moving all those people while he’d been unconscious? Where did they go?

Bucky felt sick.

“Don’t worry,” the man said, completely misinterpreting the source of Bucky’s horror. “We’re keeping this situation on the downlow. No-one knows you’re here apart from a few members of staff and they’ve all signed non-disclosure agreements. This is going to stay out of public knowledge.”

Bucky took a deep, calming breath.

“What do I need to do to leave?” he asked the man.

“Well,” the man said, “you need an assessment from a psychiatrist for starters. We can get that sorted for you in the morning.”

The morning. Bucky didn’t want to be here any longer than he had to.

“Can’t you get me one now?” he asked.

“It’s almost midnight,” the man said.

“Actually,” the other man – the doctor – said, finally speaking up for the first time, “we do have a psychiatrist on call for the night shift. She’s busy right now, but we can ask her to come up as soon as she's free.”

The doctor looked eager at the thought of being able to move Bucky on as quickly as possible. Bucky didn’t blame him; he couldn’t imagine that the doctor was at all happy with this situation.

“Great,” Bucky said, and the doctor ran off after the man in black told him to sort something out.

“Why don’t you go back to bed while you wait?” the nameless government official suggested.

“No,” Bucky said incredulously. He wasn’t going to wait in bed like an invalid. There was nothing wrong with him.

“I want to have a smoke,” Bucky said.

“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” the man said.

“I know I can’t smoke in the hospital,” Bucky said, trying hard to remain patient even though this annoying man was really starting to get on his nerves. “I’ll go outside and come back in.”

“You’re not allowed to leave this ward,” the man said.

Bucky felt his fists clench and, for the first time, this man looked slightly apprehensive as his eyes dropped down to look at Bucky’s metal arm. The arm was uncovered as whoever had brought these clothes had only brought a short sleeved shirt.

Bucky took another deep breath. He hated hospitals with a vengeance. Hospitals meant doctors, and scientists in lab coats. He hated doctors and scientists; they meant pain, and drugs, and experimentations. And while none of those things were happening here and now, because he knew that wasn’t his life anymore, every instinct in his body was screaming at him to get out of here. He didn’t feel safe. He wanted to leave.

But he knew he had to comply.

“Fine,” he said, and he saw the man visibly relax.

“Probably best to go back to your room and wait,” the man said. “You’re making people here a bit anxious.”

Bucky felt a stab of guilt and obediently returned to his room, slamming the door in the other man’s face when he tried to follow him in. He heard the man pull a chair close to the door and imagined the annoying man sitting vigil outside the room to make sure he wouldn’t be able to leave without him knowing about it.

Bucky pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped at it to wake it up.

No signal.

There was a notice on the wall saying there was free Wi-Fi. He could connect but in all honesty he really didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see all the WhatsApp messages and missed calls he was sure he would find from Christina and also, probably, from Sam. He remembered shouting down the phone at Sam. He couldn’t remember what he’d shouted, but he remembered how angry he’d been. He’d not been himself. Sam would be worried about him, and Bucky wasn’t sure he could deal with any more messages from him.

He thrust his phone back in his pocket, now glad there was no signal, and settled for pacing round the room instead as he waited.

And time passed.

He kept himself busy by locating and pulling out all of his stitches. He broke into a locked drawer next to the bed and found some small scissors which he used to help tug them all out. He kept a nervous eye on the door as he did so, having a feeling that people might disapprove of this, perhaps viewing it as a further act of self-harm, but what was he to do? He couldn’t leave the stitches in – they would just cause no end of trouble later. He was already healing over them.

It was one in the morning when he heard a voice outside his room. He heard his name and he stepped closer to the door to listen.

“Barnes, yes,” he heard. It was the government man again. Bucky wished now that he’d waited to hear the man’s name. There wasn’t anyone with him; it sounded like he was on the phone.

“Waiting for a psychiatrist,” he heard. “We’ve spoken to the therapist, a Dr Raynor?”

There was quiet for a little while.

“Diagnoses?” the man said. “I’ve got it all here.”

Bucky heard the snap of the briefcase latch, followed by the rustling of papers.

“We’ve got post-traumatic stress,” the man continued, clearly reading from his notes, “… um… and complex-post traumatic stress. Apparently they’re two different things and you can have both, who knew? Um… anxiety, depression, sleep disorder…”

Bucky took a step away from the door. He didn’t want to hear this. But his damn super-soldier hearing meant he couldn’t prevent himself from hearing more.

“Manifests with insomnia, eating disorders, nightmares, disassociation, self-harming behaviours, impulsivity, obsessive compulsive behaviours, suicidal ideation, substance misuse, drugs, alcohol, sexual…”

Bucky cringed and stepped back even further away from door as the man casually listed everything that was wrong with him as if reading from a shopping list.

“Yeah I know,” the man continued, “he’s all messed up… apparently poses low risk of harm to other people… yeah… I don’t know what they were thinking either.”

Bucky threw himself on the bed and buried his head in the pillows, covering his ears. He couldn’t bear to listen to any more of this. He hated this. Hated the reminder of just how fucked up he was.

He didn’t want to be reminded that behind the scenes of his everyday struggles with life lay a whole load of people casting judging upon him, talking about him behind his back; sharing and discussing every single aspect of his life.

Crazy James Barnes he imagined them saying, Look at what he’s done now.

What were we thinking? He doesn’t belong around normal people.

He’s not safe, crazy James Barnes

He’s all messed up

He hated that a whole load of strangers, people who he would likely never meet, were talking about him right now, and discussing everything he did. All these people knowing that just a few hours ago he’d attacked himself viciously with a knife and discussing it amongst each other, while he was just lying here, waiting for something to happen.

A nasty, terrifying thought entered his mind: What if they never let him leave?

What if this was it for him? Would they view this situation as failure? And if so, then what? Back to prison? To be locked up in a mental institution? It had only been three weeks ago that he’d last caused a fright for everyone – what if this was the last chance?

Suddenly he felt afraid, really really afraid. He didn’t want to be locked up. He was used to freedom now. He might struggle with it, and there were many many times where he felt he didn’t deserve it, but he was free now. He couldn’t bear the thought of having it taken away, not now. It was too cruel.

And now having heard that list of issues, all the things wrong with him, he couldn’t imagine for a moment that anyone would believe he should be out in the world amongst normal, sane people.

I don’t know what they were thinking either

He heard a knock at the door, slightly muffled through the pillows, and he sat up as the man in black let himself in.

“The psychiatrist is here now,” the man said.

Bucky was led into another room, and was told to sit on the couch. Moments later a terrified looking woman sat in the chair opposite him. The government official stayed in the room with them. Bucky teetered on the edge of asking him to leave, but decided against it. He had a strong suspicion that this request would be denied.

“Do your thing then,” the man instructed the woman, who swallowed, nodded and then pulled out a laptop with shaking hands.

Once again Bucky willed himself to be patient. This was overly reminiscent of his stint on the Raft. They’d paraded one useless terrified psychiatrist after another in front of him, asking him pointless question after pointless question, and it had tested his patience then.

He wished Christina was here. Where the fuck was she? Why wasn’t she here?

Just do what they want, he told himself, and then you can go home.

He hoped this would be the case.

“I’m going to start by asking you a few screening questions,” the psychiatrist said. She’d not even bothered to introduce herself. Bucky didn’t care.

The questions were along the same lines as the ones he’d been asked before.

Answering ‘never’ ‘rarely’ ‘sometimes’ ‘often’ ‘very often’ how frequently do you experience the following:

This was then followed by a list of useless statements

Statements about eating, personal hygiene, sleeping, nightmares, hobbies…

He remained silent. He didn’t answer a single question. Instead he stared at the clock above the door, watching as the hands slowly moved indicating the passage of time… 2am… 2.15… 2.30…

He’d not intended to be deliberately difficult. He’d come into the room with the intention of doing as he was told, and answering all the questions given to him, but this situation reminded him too much of his time on the Raft – this woman so useless, and the annoying man refusing to leave and listening to every word – that he reverted to silence automatically without even intending to.

“How often do you have thoughts of harming yourself?” the psychiatrist asked him.

Bucky stayed silent. He noticed the man take out his phone and stare at it. He looked bored.

“How often do you have thoughts of harming others?” the woman asked.

“Never,” Bucky said quickly. This was a question he would answer, and he hoped that they would take this response seriously.

The woman looked shocked that he’d answered the question and she almost dropped her laptop in surprise. She didn’t type anything.

“Never,” Bucky repeated. “Write that down,” he then instructed as she continued to make no movement to type. She quickly did so.

Bucky looked over at the man in black who looked decidedly unimpressed. Bucky couldn’t tell if the man’s poor opinion was aimed at the psychiatrist or at Bucky himself. Probably both.

She asked more questions which he continued to refuse to answer. Questions about self-harming, intrusive thoughts, what instigated the recent incident…

…and so on and on and on…

2.45am… 3.00… 3.15

After a further two hours of this the woman and the man then left, leaving Bucky alone in the room. He silently cursed himself for his stupidity and stubbornness. He should have engaged better with the assessment. He’d only answered one question. They’d never let him leave now surely?

No-one came back for him. He waited.

It was six am when he emerged from the room to find that no-one was in sight. He’d just been abandoned. He found the government official at the nurses’ station chatting to the male doctor he’d seen earlier, accompanied by two women in scrubs he’d not seen before. The psychiatrist was no-where to be seen. One of the women squeaked when she saw him walk towards them.

“So…” Bucky said casually as he approached, trying to appear nonchalant, “I saw the psychiatrist. Can I go now?”

“We’re waiting to hear from your therapist,” the man said.

That actually sounded promising.

“So ring her,” Bucky said.

“It’s practically 6.30 in the morning,” the man said, in a tone that suggested that Bucky was stupid. “We can’t ring her before 9.”

Bucky felt his anger rising, and quickly stamped it back down.

What’s so magical about 9am he griped to himself that everything has to wait until then?

He thought of Christina, fast asleep probably in her own bed while he was going through all this Hell. For fuck’s sake she’s the one who got him into this mess calling for help, she should be more accessible.

“Can I use that phone?” he asked one of the nurses casually, pointing at it.

She looked anxiously at the man in black who nodded at her.

Bucky quickly dialled Christina’s number.

He meant to sound calm. He meant to sound normal, patient, like someone who was well and decidedly not going crazy. But when she answered, after what seemed like an age – probably sleeping Bucky thought uncharitably – all the irritation poured out of him, finally finding a suitable outlet.

“Christina,” he said as soon as she answered, not even giving her the chance to say ‘hello’. “I need you to ring this fucking hospital and tell them I can leave, because I swear to God I am moments away from walking out of here, consequences be damned.”

He saw the man’s eyebrows rise as he said these words, and he pivoted so he couldn’t see him at all.

“I’m going crazy here Christina, I need you to get me out,” he pleaded.

He hung up before she could say anything.

“If you leave without permission,” the man said to him as he put the phone down, “you will be returned to the Raft.”

Bucky stared at him, hating him.

He’s all messed up

The man wilted slightly under the force of his gaze.

“It’s not a threat,” the man said quickly, “I’m just informing you of the consequences. I’m doing you no favours by not telling you…”

He trailed off as Bucky continued to glare at him.

And then the man’s phone rang.

“Oh thank God,” the man said as he answered his phone, relieved to be able to end this interaction.

“Hang on,” the man said down the phone. He looked over at Bucky and then moved away down the corridor.

Bucky had no desire to hear any of this phone conversation. The last thing he wanted right now was to hear another recitation of everything that was wrong with him. Bucky moved himself further away so that he could see the man but not hear him, even with his super hearing.

After a while the man hung up the phone and then he and the doctor huddled together for even longer, in deep conversation. Every now and then they looked over at him, and the man in black took three more phone calls.

After what seemed like an age the man came back over to him, doctor in tow. Bucky’s insides were squirming, but he remained still as he waited for the judgement.

“You’re free to leave,” the man said. Bucky felt his heart lift at these words, and he wasn’t about to wait another moment, as he turned to run straight for the door but then the man held up a hand, indicating him to wait. It took all of Bucky’s willpower to stop himself and wait, but he was visibly quivering with the desire to put as much distance between himself and this hospital as possible.

“You’re to go straight to see your therapist, you understand,” the man said. “She’s expecting you at her office.”

“Fine,” Bucky said. He’d agree to anything. The man’s hand remained raised so Bucky waited, feeling a little bit like a dog waiting to be allowed to run off the lead.

“I will drive you there,” the man said reluctantly, sounding like he’d rather jump into a river of sharks than have to sit with Bucky in a confined space.

“Do you have to?” Bucky asked, finding the prospect equally as unpleasant as this man clearly did.

The man hesitated.

Bucky could practically see the dilemma playing out in the man’s head. He probably should drive with Bucky to his therapist, but he clearly didn’t want to.

“I can get there easily myself,” Bucky told him, trying to sound reasonable and persuasive. “I know where I am, it’s in walking distance. It’s not a problem.”

The man considered this, still clearly agonising over the choice that lay before him. If he let Bucky go alone, and something then happened, it would be considered his fault.

Bucky held his breath as the man reached a decision.

“You’re to go straight there,” he instructed Bucky, “no detours.”

A moment later the doctor swiped his card at the double doors and Bucky could contain himself no longer, rushing through them the moment the buzzer went, indicating the door was unlocked.

“What a fucking night,” he heard the man in black say behind him as he rushed towards the stairs, “I’m going to bed.”

Moments later Bucky burst out of the main entrance of the hospital and quickly made his way round the building to find a more isolated spot in order to compose himself.

What a fucking night indeed, he thought as he leaned against the wall of the maternity building.

But he was out! He’d succeeded. He hadn’t been carted off back to prison; he hadn’t been driven off to a mad house. He’d been released.

He must have done something right.

He was about to get his cigarettes out when he felt his phone buzzing. It buzzed several times. It must have found some signal since coming out of the hospital.

Bucky pulled it out of his pocket instead of the cigarettes, and looked through the notifications.

They were all from Christina.  

He started to feel really guilty as he thought back to the events of the evening before. Christina must have been so worried. All he’d done was ring her, sob down the phone at her, and hung up. God knows what she thought had happened. She probably thought he’d killed someone, or something. She’d probably put everyone on alert again. All those sodding protocols. And now everyone in the government probably knew that crazy James Barnes had ended up in hospital because he’d cut himself repeatedly with a knife.

He’s all messed up

He thought back over the list of his issues he’d overhead the man in black say on the phone.

Self-harming

Suicidal ideation

Everyone was going think he’d tried to kill himself.

And he couldn’t even do that properly.

Wonderful.

As he swiped away the notifications one by one he suddenly noticed something: or rather, the absence of something.

There was nothing from Sam.

No missed calls, no messages.

Bucky felt a lump rise in his throat and his eyes stung as he realised what this meant.

He’d lost Sam.

Of course he’d lost Sam. Sam had rung him to talk about something important and all he’d got was an earful of Bucky shouting down the phone at him.

Suddenly Bucky remembered what he’d said.

There is nothing for us to talk about

Stop calling me

And now there was nothing. In the past Sam would have sent him a message straight away after a conversation like that. Sam would have asked if he was okay, Sam would have been concerned.

But there was nothing.

It’s no less than you deserve he told himself. There’s only so much rejection, anger and abuse that Sam would be willing to put himself through for the sake of Bucky’s friendship, and who could blame him for that? Bucky had continuously treated Sam like crap and yet Sam had given him chance after chance. He knew there would be no more chances now.

Bucky found himself crying again. Not great heaving sobs like yesterday, as he’d sobbed down the phone at Christina; these were silent tears, streaming down his face, and he couldn’t stop them.

While he’d been in the hospital he’d been so focused on behaving, and doing as he was told and trying to get out, that he’d not really spared a moment to properly reflect on everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, but now it was all catching up to him. The meeting with Yori Nakajima, shouting at Sam, the guilt over the murder of Yori’s son, the knife, the call with Christina: guilt, remorse, loss; it all came flooding back, and the tears kept coming.

Bucky tried to calm himself. While it was still early, and he was away from the main entrance and carparks of the hospital, there were still people milling about and he didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention. What if that man from the government followed him out and saw him? It wasn’t exactly a good look was it? Freaking out so soon after being released from the hospital. It would be added to the list of how messed up he was. He imagined the man ringing his superiors to inform them that he’d discovered crazy James Barnes, all messed up, crying in the carpark.

But he couldn’t stop crying.

In the periphery of his vision, and through the tears, he saw two people stop. He looked up to see a small boy and his mother. The boy was pointing at him and then pulled at his mother’s arm to whisper something in her ear.

Bucky felt his insides freeze. He’d been recognised. His damn metal arm on display for everyone to see, and this little boy knew who he was. What had he been thinking, waiting outside the hospital where anyone could see him? He’d end up in the news. He could almost imagine the headlines, proudly displaying Bucky’s shame for the whole country, no, the whole world to see.

Crazy James Barnes, all messed up

He saw the woman pass her son something and he came over. He looked to be about eight or nine years old. Bucky stared at him, uncertain what was happening. When the boy reached him he held something out to him. Bucky reached out for it automatically, the fingers of his right hand curling around the item.

“For you,” the little boy said. Bucky glanced down at the item the boy had pressed into his hand. It was a small pack of tissues. Some part of him crumpled inside.

“Thank you,” he said automatically, and then watched as the boy returned to his mother, she took his hand, and they carried on towards the hospital entrance.

Bucky stared at the pack of tissues, his vision still blurry from the tears. It had been such a small, simple and unexpected act of kindness; and yet so immensely touching. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so moved, and by something so normal and yet so unbelievably heart-warming. More tears fell, this time provoked by the emotion this small yet also incredibly significant act of sympathy and humanity evoked within him.

For the entire night he’d been surrounded by such irritating people: the bored government official, the useless psychiatrist, the doctor and nurses who were all afraid of him, having to jump through hoops and do as he was told, that this small act of kindness suddenly served as an important reminder that there did still exist good people in the world.

He pulled out a tissue and dried his eyes with it.

It took a further few minutes to calm himself down and reach a point where he was mentally able to properly think through his situation and decide what to do next.

He was supposed to go straight to Christina’s office, he remembered. Sod that. He was a mess. He needed a shower, he needed his gloves, and he needed clothes that covered his arm.

He’d go home first. Christina would have to wait. After all she’d just put him through, she owed him that much.

Notes:

Regarding Bucky's diagnoses:

Now, I am a lay person when it comes to mental health and psychiatric conditions so take what I say with a pinch of salt and do your own research if you are interested. My knowledge of this comes from my own personal experience with C-PTSD and also from my job as a social worker, so I do not pretend to be an expert in any way.

I may be wrong when I say this but I think the America DSM 5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and the APA (American Psychiatric Association) does not recognise Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) as a separate disorder from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My info on this may be faulty though. Regardless, in this story Bucky has been diagnosed with both of those conditions. The World Health Organisation however does recognise C-PTSD as a separate disorder from PTSD. As is mentioned in this chapter they are two separate things and it is very possible to be diagnosed with both conditions at the same time.

PTSD is usually as a result of a single traumatic incident - a singular trauma or event. One might get PTSD from a near death experience, from a car crash, from being in the army. Those of you who have read the prequel story 'the journey of our life' might remember that Bucky was showing PTSD symptoms back in the war. C-PTSD is usually the result of prolonged exposure to a trauma that has lasted for years and years. For example in Bucky's case: torture, slavery, captivity. The symptoms and treatment for both conditions overlap, but C-PTSD may be a more complicated affair given that it is built up over many years of sustained and prolonged trauma. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and anti-depressants such as sertraline can be used to treat both.

Dr Raynor in this story takes a CBT approach to therapy, which, on a very basic level, is about trying to change the way you think about things.

PTSD can also become C-PTSD.

Bucky displays a lot of behaviours in this story which are consistent with PTSD and C-PTSD characteristics. Such as: engaging in high risk behaviours, negative views about himself, difficulty managing his emotions, poor sleep, nightmares, feelings of guilt, shame, feeling that other people are inherently unsafe, memory problems of the trauma, angry outbursts, pushing people away (like Sam), self-destructive behaviours... the list goes on and on really.

But that's why Bucky does the things that he does. He can be brash, mean, compulsive, and behave in really odd, self destructive and counter productive ways. But he is trying, and things will get better.

CPTSD and PTSD can often be diagnosed alongside depression and anxiety - generally caused by the difficulties of having to manage all the struggles and challenges of managing all the symptoms of having PTSD / C-PTSD.

Anyway, thanks for staying for my TED talk (if you did). And, as I said before, I am not an expert - and I suggest you look into all this yourselves if you're interested.

Chapter 17: Circles and Cycles; Swings and Roundabouts

Circles and Cycles; Swings and Roundabouts

 

Someone, or maybe multiple someones, had been very busy overnight while he’d been in hospital. As soon as Bucky walked into his apartment he noticed the changes immediately. Not only had the place been immaculately cleaned, to the point that there wasn’t even any dust on the skirting boards, but the place had also been very inexpertly searched.

He didn’t feel surprised; he was used by now to people just coming and going as they pleased, moving his things, going through everything, but it made his apartment feel very alien all of a sudden.

People had been very busy indeed: not only had the carpet been replaced, presumably because of the bloodstains on the floor, but the cupboard he kept his notebooks in had also been replaced. Bucky vaguely remembered breaking the drawers in his mindless frenzy to locate Yori’s son in his notebooks. Bucky’s eyes fell on the bookcase. Every book was there, but they were all in different places as if someone had been pulling them out to look behind them and then forgot where to place them back.

They’d searched thoroughly but not well enough for it to be unnoticeable, but they’d not taken anything. Bucky did a quick inspection of his cupboards, his box of things he didn’t know what to do with, and everywhere else and nothing was missing. Well, the knife he’d attacked himself was no longer there, but he’d hardly expected anyone to leave that.

After a cursory look round to make sure nothing was missing, Bucky then completed a more thorough search, looking for any surveillance devices – hidden cameras, microphones that sort of thing. To his surprise he found nothing. He looked everywhere. If his apartment had been bugged, he knew for certain that he would be able to locate them.

His phone buzzed with a message from Christina:

Not sure if the message got passed on, she wrote, but you’re supposed to come straight to see me.

Bucky rolled his eyes. A very diplomatic way of saying: where the hell are you? You were supposed to be here ages ago!

He sent a message back to let her know he was on his way, had a quick shower and then set off to meet her.

It came as no surprise when he noticed that there were now no signs of injury anywhere on his body. No cuts or scars, or any physical evidence whatsoever of what had happened over the last 24 hours.

No matter what I do it all goes away so quickly he remembered telling Christina once like it never happened

He felt exhausted. Not from tiredness – he could go days and days without sleeping, but he felt emotionally drained. All he wanted to do was just collapse on the sofa and be alone. But no, now he had to go and talk about everything with Christina.

He was pissed off with Christina. Not only had he ended up in hospital because of her, but where had she been all night? It had been absolutely hellish, and she’d just been absent. And then he finally got home to find that she’d had her minions, because of course it was them, search the place and move everything around.

“You had my apartment searched,” was the first thing he said to her when he joined her in their usual room.

She didn’t deny it.

“You know I have the remit to do that, if it’s necessary,” she said.

Bucky scowled.

“It’s intrusive,” he told her, “and unnecessary. This whole thing has been a massive overreaction. I didn’t need to go to hospital.”

Bucky gestured at his arm. “They gave me stitches,” he griped. “I had to pull them all out. No-one there knew what they were doing. And they cleared out a cancer ward for me, for crying out loud! And they wouldn’t let me out, not even for a smoke.”

She sat in silence, letting him moan without interruption. He moaned about the psychiatrist, the man in black, the uselessness of the whole thing, and she didn’t say a word. She just let him unleash all that frustration and anger onto her. Her silence unnerved him.

“And where were you?” Bucky then demanded of her. “You put me through all of this, unnecessarily I might add, and you weren’t even there! I needed…” he suddenly cut himself off, unwilling to admit to her how much he had needed her, how alone he’d felt, how worried he’d been that he’d never again be free. Having her there might have helped.  

He fell silent for a while, no longer having the energy to moan. He felt shattered.

For the first time since he’d sat down he made eye contact with Christina and she smiled encouragingly at him, which just made him feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” she asked.

“I didn’t follow the rules,” he said. “I’m supposed to ring you as soon as I realise I’m losing control and I didn’t. I waited too long.”

“But you did ring me,” she pointed out. “You did the right thing.”

Bucky felt his eyes water – God, he was so fed up with crying – at her unexpected praise. He’d not been expecting this, he’d been expecting condemnation and criticism but instead she was being nice, even after all the moaning and complaining he’d just done.

“I was doing better,” he said, and his voice broke slightly as he spoke. “I was doing all-right, things were going fine the last couple of weeks, but… everything just went wrong yesterday.”

“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked.

Bucky chewed on his bottom lip and shook his head. He really didn’t know how he could find the words to tell her about Yori; he’d fall apart again if he tried.

“I’m fine now,” he said, trying to sound convincing. “Like I said, this was all an overreaction, blown way out of proportion.”

“James,” Christina said, and now she sounded firm, “what happened yesterday was a significant incident.”

Bucky sighed in frustration. “I was fine,” he said impatiently. “I had it under control.”

“You harmed yourself so badly,” Christina continued, plainly and simply with no theatrics, “that you had to go to hospital. You were unconscious. You were severely injured. This wasn’t nothing. Anyone else would have died sustaining those injuries you inflicted upon yourself yesterday.”

Bucky quickly looked down at the floor, trying to hide his embarrassment, and his disappointment at his own failure.

“Was that your aim?” she asked him gently. “That you might be able to end your life?”

Bucky shook his head, and wiped at his eyes with a gloved hand.

“I can’t do this anymore, Christina,” he said.

“Do what?” she asked.

Bucky gestured around the room. “This,” he said. “Pretending I can be normal, pretending I can be just the same as everyone else. I can’t. I shouldn’t be here. I should be locked up.”

“James,” she said again, and her voice was even softer now, and heavy with compassion. “This was a setback. It doesn’t mean failure. This is a normal part of recovery. Do you remember when we talked about the cycle of change?”

Bucky considered this, mentally sifting through all the psychobabble terminologies Christina frequently used to see if he did remember this one.

“Is that…” he began hesitantly, almost afraid he’d get the answer wrong, “the whole…” he spun his forefinger round in small circles, “moving forward in circles thing?” he finished.

Christina smiled. “Well remembered,” she said, making Bucky almost feel proud of himself.

“And each time we go round the cycle,” she said, “we learn from it, so we can keep on moving forward. And that’s why…”

“… I have to tell you what happened,” Bucky finished for her.

And she smiled encouragingly at him.

Bucky picked up the glass of water that she’d put out for him when he’d sat down and took a sip. He really didn’t feel good.

“Who are we kidding Christina?” he asked, staring at the glass rather than making eye contact with her, “I can’t do this. I can’t be normal. I can’t have a normal life. It’s a joke. I just walked down the street yesterday and met a man whose son I murdered twenty years ago.”

“That’s what triggered this?” she asked.

 “All those horrific things I’ve done,” he continued. “All those people I’ve killed. That man deserves justice for his son’s death and here I am. Alive and unpunished. I don’t deserve this. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“The President thinks you do,” she reminded him, “as do many others. There are a lot of people who want you to do well, and get better.”

“It’s all a waste of time,” Bucky said, “every time I do better I just slip right back. It always ends the same way.”

“This is not an ending,” Christina said. “It’s part of the journey.”

Bucky continued to gaze into his glass. Her words triggered a memory in him and he couldn’t stop himself from slipping back.

There is only one ending here. The only question is of how long it will take you to get there

Fennhoff.

“He said there was only one ending,” Bucky said absently.

“Who said that?” Christina asked him.

Bucky faltered, in his mind transported that to that small White Room, the room that broke his mind, where’d he’d been for so long. And Fennhoff, that cruel man who took such delight in his misery, loneliness and suffering. He remembered bashing against the door with his good arm, screaming and yelling. And then the hours of quiet: waiting, crying, and dreaming of home.

I’ll not comply he had shouted through the door, I’ll not…


But he had. He’d capitulated. And then so many people, like Yori’s son, had had to pay the price for his weakness.

He’s given up. Finally

Ready to comply

I was always so fucking compliant

There is only one ending here

And it happened. He’d failed to stop it.

And more words from Fennhoff, words he'd not remembered before:

It’s been four months, Soldier, and it’ll be another four before I give you another opportunity to leave. This is your last chance to comply

Eight months? He’d been in the White Room for over eight months?

The glass shattered in his hand, and he was brought back abruptly to the present. Water dripped through his fingers onto the sofa and the carpet, and the shards of glass fell to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, panicked, getting up to pick up the pieces of glass. 

“Sit down,” Christina instructed him, and he obediently sank back onto the couch.

She got up, crossed over towards him and began to pick up the bits of glass herself. Bucky noticed his right hand was bleeding slightly which reminded him of the day before. He stared blankly at the blood. He felt so hollow… and empty.

“It’s okay, James,” Christina said, and laid a hand on his arm after piling up the glass onto the little table.

 He looked at her desperately. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said.

“You’ve been doing so well,” she said, letting go of his arm but not yet returning to her chair.

“Have I?” he asked, not believing her. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Setbacks do not invalidate progress,” she said. “It’s normal to have ups and downs: swings and roundabouts. It’s all a part of the recovery cycle.”

She sat back down.

“Is it?” he asked her. “Is it normal? I feel so far removed from normal. I try and try and try to be normal, to do the things you tell me to, but I can’t stop myself. It’s like being under mind control again. I can see myself doing the things I’m doing and I’m screaming at myself to stop, but I can’t.”

Only this time he no longer had the excuse that Hydra was controlling his mind to explain all the crazy things he did. But then…

Hadn’t he thought something similar, years ago, back in the war? He’d noticed even then that at times he’d felt like he had been waging a constant war against his own brain, a war he was destined to lose, because how can you win a war against your own brain? It hadn’t been Hydra that had created this weakness in his mind, it had already been there – he’d already had a weak brain, they just took advantage of it.

…They really lucked out getting me didn’t they… No-one else could have become the Winter Soldier… I was the perfect person… I gave them exactly what they wanted…

He’d said just that to Christina in this very room once.

Christina was speaking, and he forced himself to pay attention.

“Habits, addictions and maladaptive behaviours,” she said, “they can form a kind of trench in your brain. The same responses, the same thought processes, the same behaviours, over and over again digging you in deeper and deeper, and they create a path in there that you naturally want to follow. And it’s hard to get out of a trench, the deeper it gets.”

Bucky stared at her wondering what in heaven she was going on about now.

“That’s why it is so easy to fall back into those behaviours,” she explained. “They’ve carved out a trench in your brain and we’re trying to get you out of it by helping you form new behaviours and habits. They don’t form overnight. Your brain is learning new pathways.”

Actually, he thought, that almost did make sense.

“Every time you try and implement new strategies and positive habits, you start building a way out of the trench, but it takes repeated attempts and there will be times that returning to that trench is just the only thing you can do. It’s not failure. And what do we do when that happens?”

Bucky knew the answer to this question.

“We accept it happened,” he said, “we learn from it, and we start again.”

She nodded, returned to her chair. “Recovery is not a straight line,” she reminded him. “I promise you, we’ll get you there.”

She always used that word we. A way of evoking partnership, Bucky supposed, like they were in it together. And yet he’d been alone at the hospital, she’d just left him there.  

“Where were you last night?” he asked her. “Why weren’t you there at the hospital with me?”

“You got a lot of people very worried after what happened,” she told him. “I was on the phone constantly trying to sort things out.”

She hesitated for a moment as if considering whether or not to continue.

“I won’t lie to you James,” she said, and this made Bucky’s heart pick up speed, “but there was some concern about this happening so soon after the last incident. I had to spend the entire night reassuring people that it was safe for you to stay in the community.”

Bucky’s felt his insides freeze. He’d been right to be so afraid last night when he’d worried about whether he’d be allowed to go free.

“They wanted to lock me back up?” he asked.

“There was some discussion about whether it might be best for you to receive residential treatment,” she said. “Your actions yesterday worried a lot of people.”

A mad house, Bucky thought to himself in horror.

“You mean that I freaked people out again,” he interpreted.

“No, I mean worried,” she said. “Is it so hard to believe that people are worried for you?”

“They’re worried that I’ll snap and kill someone,” Bucky said. “They’re worried their little project will fail, and they won’t have their pet super soldier anymore.”

“No-one is worried about that,” she said.

Bucky remembered the man in the hospital:

Apparently poses a low risk to other people… I don’t know what they were thinking, either

He remembered how scared and apprehensive the staff at the hospital had been; they’d been frightened of him, looking at him like he was a bomb about to go off.

“That’s what I was doing all night,” Christina said, “and there’s more conversations to come, I’m sure of that.”

For the first time Bucky noticed how tired Christina looked; she genuinely looked like she’d been awake all night, tirelessly advocating for him the whole night long.

“This leads me on to something else we need to talk about…” she now looked apprehensive, and that worried him.

“The psychiatrist you saw... she made some recommendations regarding your treatment, and your ability to remain in the community is conditional upon you agreeing to those recommendations.”

That sounded ominous. Bucky didn’t like where this was heading.

“She wants to prescribe you medication for…”

“No,” Bucky said immediately, cutting her off.

“It’s usual for…” Christina tried to continue.

“No,” Bucky repeated. “I’m not going on medication. I won’t do it.”

Christina sighed and rubbed her forehead as she considered another way to try to sell this to him.

“I know you think that taking medication is a sign that you have failed,” she told him, expertly pinpointing the source of his refusal. “I am here to tell you that it is not. There are many pathways to recovery and medication is one of them. Now the one that she is suggesting…”

“How can she make this recommendation?” Bucky asked angrily. “I barely said anything to her. She was useless. No-one there knew what to do with me. This medication… it probably won’t even work. You won’t know the dosage to give me. Did anyone think of that?”

“Yes, actually,” she said. “The idea is that we will trial a slightly higher than the usual dose and increase it until we start to see effects. And we will see effects, James. It’s very effective, even for you. You’re not the first enhanced person to require anti-depressants, although I’ll admit the pool is small but there’s enough information for us to know what will work.”

Bucky buried his head in his hands, feeling completely defeated and powerless.

“I can’t say no, can I?” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she said, and she sounded sympathetic. “I’ll admit it was a difficult task, persuading them to let you remain out in the community, and this was the compromise.”

Bucky didn’t respond to this, remained with his head in his hands as he tried desperately to think of a way out of this mess. Nothing came to him.

“You’ll find that the medication will help you in many ways,” she said encouragingly, in a rather futile attempt to make him feel better about it. “It will help with the intrusive thoughts, the flashbacks, and your anxiety. It will make managing your panic attacks easier. Isn’t that what happened yesterday that triggered this? You had a panic attack?”

“I was dealing with it fine,” Bucky told her. “I managed it. I met this man, heard his name, and then remembered that I’d killed his son. But I managed it fine. I left him, I went to calm down and I was calming down. It was all fine.”

“And then?” she asked.

Bucky led out a despondent groan and stared out of the window.

“It was Sam…” he said regretfully. “I’d arranged to talk to him, but I’d forgotten. And he rang while I was trying to calm myself down, and I freaked out at him, and then I couldn’t contain it any longer.”

“You arranged to speak with Sam?” Christina asked, sounding surprised.

“Don’t get too excited,” Bucky said. “He’s gone now. Properly this time.”

He twisted his hands together in his lap as he spoke.

“But it was my fault,” he sighed. “I shouted at him. It was bad timing, and he brought back all those feelings and I couldn’t…”

He trailed off, regretful, and wishing that he could turn back the clock so very badly.

“He made me feel so humiliated,” he continued quietly, looking down at his lap, referring to the time he’d made the dreadful mistake of kissing Sam. “It wasn’t like I was declaring undying love or anything. I just misread the situation, and he had to call me emotionally vulnerable and when I spoke to him yesterday I just couldn’t manage. It was all too much in one go: all those thoughts and feelings. And that’s why I ended up… well, you know…” he said reluctant to say it out loud – why I ended up cutting myself with a knife until I passed out -  because he was still embarrassed about it, “…in hospital,” he finished instead.

“Emotionally vulnerable,” Christina repeated, with a look of dawning comprehension on her face. “That’s what he said to you that time. That’s what triggered the incident three weeks ago.”

Bucky had forgotten that he’d never actually told her that.

Christina considered this new information for a moment.

“Do you think he was wrong?” she asked Bucky.

Bucky didn’t think Sam had been wrong when he’d called Bucky emotionally vulnerable, he knew deep down that Sam had been right, and this bothered him immensely.

“It doesn’t matter if he was right or not,” he answered her, his tone impatient. “He shouldn’t have said it. He has no right saying things like that. He’s not… he’s not you.”

This actually made Christina smile a little bit.

“You’re the only one who can say things like that to me,” Bucky said. “But it doesn’t matter now anyway,” he continued scathingly, “Sam’s really gone now. For good.”

“I can call him,” she suggested. “I can tell him what’s happened, or...”

“No!” The refusal burst out of Bucky vehemently.

“Absolutely not,” he said, just as forcefully. Not only were there some things Sam never had to know, he also couldn’t imagine how it could be in any way helpful to Sam to be told that just after their conversation Bucky had tried to kill himself.

Because let’s face it, wasn’t that exactly what he’d hoped to do?

She opened her mouth to speak and he cut across her.

“You can’t speak to him without my permission, can you?” he asked her.

She nodded. “That’s right. If he calls me I can listen to him,” she said, “but I can’t tell him anything without your agreement.”

“Then I forbid you from talking to him,” Bucky said. “Ever!”

She murmured her assent and then fell silent for a good long while as she considered all the things he’d just told her.

“I think there’s something really key here,” she said finally, “that we’ve never explored in our therapy sessions, and I think we need to put this on the table for our future work together.”

Bucky didn’t like the sound of that, and he stared at her in some trepidation as he waited for her to continue.

She licked her lips, and chose her words very carefully.

“I think that it might be good for us to explore some of your beliefs… and attitudes that stem from your upbringing,” she said cautiously.

Bucky felt stunned.

“What do you mean?” he asked her.

She took a short sharp intake of breath, and Bucky could tell that she was trying to phrase her words very carefully.

“We, all of us, are the product of our environment. The views we absorb from around us when we are children can be hard to move on from…”

“Wait a minute!” Bucky exclaimed, catching on to what she was implying, and completely horrified by it. “You can’t say that. I know what people were like when I was younger. I was never like that, nor was Steve. I was never racist, or sexist. I don’t have outdated attitudes.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Christina assured him. “I know you’re neither racist nor sexist. I’m not talking about those things. But what I have noticed, James, is the language you use and your body language and attitude when we talk about your emotions, your beliefs about yourself, your mental health, and also your sexuality.”

Bucky shrank back in the sofa, wishing he could just fall through it and disappear.

“You exhibit a lot of criticism towards yourself for being weak,” Christina started to explain. “You’ve talked about how strong people can’t be weak. I think this might be linked to your belief set around masculinity and what is acceptable masculine behaviour. I’ve also noticed that you do also exhibit an incredible amount of internalised homophobia, although I think that’s improving by your exposure to the modern world.”

Bucky wanted to refute her and he opened his mouth to issue a heated and impassioned denial but then he stopped.

He remembered Sam saying, months ago, in the diner:

I won’t put up with you belittling the way that I need to manage my grief because you have outdated attitudes about male emotions or some such shit

He remembered Colonel Phillips telling him, on that last fateful day before the fall:

I can’t understand you Barnes. Here you are: a brilliant soldier, strong, smart, and extremely competent and yet at the same time you’re so weak

He remembered Timothy Dugan approaching him after he’d experienced a panic attack in front of everyone:

…You need to pull yourself together… We need you to do better… if you’re freaking out and making mistakes what does that mean for the rest of us… You could get one of us killed…

He remembered his own father calling men like him horrible slurs –  

nancy

fag

– all the while secretly knowing that he himself was one of these men that his father had such a dim view of. His own father never hugged him, never said he loved him, because men didn’t act that way to other men, not even their own sons. The last time he’d ever seen his father, a week before he’d shipped out to join the war in Europe, they’d only shared an awkward handshake.

He thought about the difficulty he had, even now, in using the word ‘gay’ to describe himself or ‘homosexual’ preferring instead to use phrases, even in his own head, such as ‘liking men’ or ‘not liking women’. He remembered how much he’d fought against it, from the moment he’d realised that he preferred looking at the boys in his class when he was at school, rather than the girls. All those girls he’d desperately experimented with in his desperation to make himself normal.

We’re abominations, we’re not meant to exist Jack had said that once, such a long time ago now.
You’ll lose your mother, your father, your sisters, and Steve. Believe me, I know. I lost everyone

And Bucky had believed him. And that’s why he’d never told Steve.

He remembered Dugan again who, after finding him in a semi compromising position with a surgeon named Marcus outside their favourite bar, had told him – 

I never would have guessed. You hide it well

–  his eyes roving over Bucky’s body as if looking for some noticeable sign of his perverse deviancy. And that’s why Bucky had always been good at hiding it. Because he knew how to be masculine, he played the part to perfection – he was strong, he could fight, he flirted with woman after woman, he knew how to fix things, build things, shoot things. Manly things. And wasn’t this exactly what Christina was talking about now? He’d been ingrained, almost conditioned, from early childhood with these masculine ideals which he still carried to this day and affected the way he thought about himself and everything that had happened to him throughout his entire life.

“I think,” Christina continued, noticing his lack of challenge to her view and taking that to mean that he was silently agreeing with her, “that it will really help you with your recovery now, to explore where these negative views you have of yourself come from. It will help you to provide context for your experiences, and will help change the way you think about yourself and the things that happened to you.  It will help you to better challenge these negative thought processes that lead you to your panic attacks and maladaptive coping strategies. Look at it this way: when Sam called you emotionally vulnerable, you took it as an insult, right?”

Bucky nodded.

“Because you thought it confirmed everything you already know about yourself to be true,” she said. “That you are mentally weak. That you gave in. That you have no control over yourself. That you are to blame for the abuse inflicted upon you by others. Because you think emotional vulnerability means weakness, because of the way you were brought up to understand masculinity and male emotions: strong men cannot be victims; you are to blame for your own abuse. And that’s what led you to your reaction. It’s shame. And it’s holding you back from recovering properly.”

“Shame?” he echoed.

“I’ve said it before James,” she said, “shame is insidious. It creeps inside us and takes root. Your actions against yourself are led by shame. We need to change those thought processes and challenge that shame. And exploring where those thought processes come from is where that journey starts.”

Gosh, Bucky thought. That sounded heavy. And deep. And difficult. A gargantuan task. But could she be right? The things she said were confusing but at the same time, on some level, made logical sense.

“But that is not for today,” Christina said. “We will file that away for another time. But I really believe it will help you immensely.”

She clapped her hands together; a signal that she was getting ready to wrap things up.

“I have more phone calls to make,” she said, “and I know the first thing they will ask me is whether you will agree to take the medication. What shall I tell them?”

Bucky let out a cynical chuckle at her attempt to make it sound like it was his choice. It was medication or confinement in some madhouse. This wasn’t a choice. It was an illusion.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’ll do as I’m told.”

He would comply. Just as he always did.

Notes:

Shame has popped up quite a bit in this story and in this series, and it's something Bucky will have to learn to address in order to be able to move on properly. Bucky has shame in spades, and this is, as Christina says, hindering his ability to properly put his experiences into context and address the guilt and self-blame he feels. The inclusion of shame is inspired by 'Working with Relational Trauma: Dealing with Disorganised Attachment' by Carolyn Spring. She has written:

 

Shame is a central experience of being a dissociative survivor of trauma. It infects and control so much of what we do. We are ashamed to talk about shame. We are ashamed to challenge it. We are ashamed to need the attuned human relationship that we know will cure it because we fear that no-one will want to give it to us. Perhaps then the first step in overcoming shame is to accept ourselves... all the parts of our self, however shameful, however angry, however badly behaved or persecutory or malicious... Shaming ourselves for being the way we are is the worst way to facilitate that change. Shame breeds shame... empathy is indeed the cure for shame...

Chapter 18: The Darkness Within: Part One

The Darkness Within: Part One

 

This was definitely a bad idea.

Yet another example of his spectacular poor decision making; no doubt he’d end up having to explore this in therapy at some point.

There was no way this could end well.

What had he been thinking?

He should have known better.

Bucky took a long drag of his cigarette in an attempt to calm his nerves as he pondered his inability to ever learn from his mistakes.

He could still leave… cancel… make some excuse… but that just felt wrong.

He really wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up here. What on Earth had possessed him to invite Yori Nakajima out to lunch? How could he have ever thought this would be a good idea?

He’d been blindsided when Yori had called him last week; having completely forgotten that in his mad dash to escape Yori’s apartment and all the horror it contained, he’d scrawled down his telephone number and told Yori to call him. So when Yori had done exactly that a few days after their initial meeting it had taken him completely by surprise.

He’d managed to just about survive the conversation by letting Yori himself be the one to talk, with Bucky himself saying the bare minimum. And Yori could talk, he was a natural conversationalist and idle chatter and topics of conversation came easy to him - he’d moaned about his neighbour messing around with his bins again, the noise caused by the people living in the apartment above, and about how unreliable public transport was. Bucky had ended the call feeling discombobulated and uneasy. He hadn’t had it in him to tell Yori not to call again, and Yori had ended the call expressing the desire to speak again soon.

And then Yori rang again two days later.

And then a third time two days after that.

And the realisation came to Bucky during the third call that Yori seemed so lonely; that the reason he was ringing Bucky was because he just wanted someone to talk to. So on the third call, when Yori had not so subtly made hints about how long it had been since he’d been to his favourite restaurant, Bucky had offered to take him there for lunch. An offer Yori quickly and gladly took him up on, telling him where to find the restaurant and asking him to bring a newspaper with him.

And it wasn’t until after Bucky had hung up the phone that he’d realised that this was probably a Very Bad Idea, and his fingers itched to message Yori back immediately and cancel.

But Yori was alone and the responsibility for that lay entirely with Bucky himself. Bucky could read between the lines of Yori’s chatter and could tell that he was lonely, and that he was struggling financially, which was hardly surprising for an old retired man without any family support. So if Bucky could do anything to help, whether it be something so simple as taking him out for lunch or buying him a newspaper, or even just spending time together then of course Bucky would do it.

So he quelled his instinct to cancel. 

And that’s how he was here right now, outside Yori’s chosen restaurant with today’s newspaper held in his gloved metal fingers as he waited for Yori to join him, and mentally cursing his poor decision making.

He’d been deliberately evasive when he’d told Christina in therapy about his meeting with Yori. He’d left out some key details – for example that he’d been inside Yori’s apartment and seen the shrine to the son he’d murdered. He’d not felt those were details she needed to know as he’d never expected to meet Yori again. He had a keen feeling that Christina would likely have an opinion about this. He could practically hear her voice now, psychoanalysing his decision to meet with Yori, presumably using some therapeutic mumbo jumbo and saying something about guilt and self-recrimination, and how this would be impacting on his recovery. She’d probably even bring in her newest buzzword: shame.

He would have to do his best to make sure Christina never found out about this.

But she would be right to say those things, he mused as he continued to wait for Yori to join him. Of course his decision to meet with Yori was led by his feelings of guilt. How could he not feel guilty? How could he not feel ashamed?

I will never know what happened to him

He was working abroad and he was killed

Wrong place, wrong time

That photo of the smiling young man, a man who had his whole life ahead of him and a father who loved him. A life brutally cut short and a father left to outlive his son in loneliness and grief.

“You smoke?”

Bucky actually jumped, and he dropped the cigarette in his shock. He’d been so lost in his internal world that he’d not noticed that Yori had joined him.

“Um…” Bucky felt suddenly lost for words as Yori then greeted him properly. To cover up his shock Bucky thrust the newspaper at Yori who took it from him enthusiastically.

“I like reading the obituaries,” Yori told him, and then gestured to him to enter the restaurant.

When they were sitting, Yori spread out the newspaper on the table and started flicking through to find the obituaries.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” Yori told him severely, glancing up from the newspaper to look at him with a disapproving eye, “you’ll die young.”

Oddly enough it was this comment which put Bucky at ease. This was familiar ground. Everyone made a comment to him along these lines, and it was easy to respond to.

“I’ll risk it,” Bucky said dismissively as Yori started to pull sushi plates off the conveyor belt.

“I had another argument with that man,” Yori told him as he twirled his chopsticks. “He told me his name is Unique. What kind of name is that? Ridiculous! I told him so myself.”

Bucky made a small noise of agreement, and in flawless Japanese asked the server to bring him the strongest alcohol they had. Yori nodded at him approvingly.

“You’re not eating,” Yori observed.

“Err…” Bucky considered what the best response to this would be. “I have strange dietary requirements,” he mumbled, choosing an excuse which he felt was close enough to the truth.

“Like allergies?” Yori asked him.

Bucky shrugged non-committedly. He still really struggled with food, and fish was a definite no go area for him. There were things here he might have tried, were he not with company and in public, but it was better not to risk it. He didn’t particularly want to spend the next hour throwing up in front of Yori.

The server brought Bucky his drink which he downed in one go and then asked for another.

“That’s a strong awamori,” Yori said, referring to the drink, and sounding impressed.

Yori then suddenly and without warning reached across the table and grabbed Bucky’s arm. Fortunately it was the right arm he grabbed and not the metal arm, but it took a lot of self-control for Bucky to force himself not to react to the sudden movement. The muscles in his arm tensed unconsciously, and the beat of his heart picked up speed as Bucky’s mind immediately went to

danger

“Hey,” Yori said, his eyes flickering to a spot behind Bucky. “The waitress is looking at you, she’s very pretty. I think she likes you.”

Bucky, still tense, somehow managed a light groan and rolled his eyes, and pulled his arm out of Yori’s grasp.

“Shall I ask her to come over?” Yori asked, “I’m sure I can get you a date.”

“No,” Bucky said quickly, “don’t.”

Yori raised his arms as if in surrender.

“Maybe I am mistaken,” Yori said, “maybe you have a girlfriend already.”

Bucky shook his head, but he made the mistake of hesitating slightly before he did so, something which Yori noticed and excitedly seized upon.

“Tell me about her,” Yori said.

“It’s not…” Bucky stumbled over his words. He could shut this conversation down but Yori appeared to be enjoying himself and wasn’t that why he was here – for Yori?

“I have a friend,” Bucky said enigmatically.

“Ah…” Yori said, “I see. A friend?”

“It’s a complicated situation,” Bucky continued.

“Does it need to be so complicated?” Yori asked.

Bucky downed his second glass of alcohol and called for another. This was strong stuff he realised. In the immediate aftermath of chugging it down he could feel himself relaxing. It wasn’t strong enough to have any lasting effect but it was worth remembering.

“I keep messing up,” Bucky told Yori, “doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing.”

He sighed. “We’re not speaking anymore,” he said.

“In this day and age,” Yori told him, “everyone is only a phone call away.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bucky muttered. “But it’s not as easy as just picking up the phone. It’s better this way. I’m not good for…” he cut himself off, on the precipice of saying him, and caught himself just in time.

“We’re no good for each other,” he said instead. “It’s for the best.”

“There is a proverb,” Yori said sagely, and then he spoke in Japanese: “take a leap from the stage of Kiyomizu.”

Bucky understood the words, but he didn’t understand the meaning behind them so Yori elaborated.

“Take the risk,” Yori explained in English upon seeing Bucky’s blank expression. “You know what they say about when you’re on your deathbed you only regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did.”

Bucky gazed despondently across the table at Yori as the other man returned happily to his food, completely oblivious to the inner turmoil his words had evoked.

Regret was a feeling Bucky knew very well; and Yori would hardly be saying these words to Bucky if he had any idea who was sitting across the table from him. Regret was Bucky’s steadfast companion, and he regretted the things he hadn’t done as well as the things he had done in equal measure. If he’d done the right things, if he’d made the right choices, he’d never have become the Winter Soldier and Yori’s son would still be alive.

Bucky downed his third drink just as quickly as he had the others.

This wasn’t right, he realised as he continued to watch Yori, he should have listened to himself earlier and just cancelled. Yori was treating him like a friend, like a… well, like a son; talking about women, giving advice, asking questions about his life. This was… cruel. This was sick and wrong and cruel. He shouldn’t have done this.

Yori gestured towards the newspaper, remarking on the young ages of the recently deceased.

“83 years old,” Yori said, “that’s four years younger than I am.” He tutted.

“So sad,” Bucky said blankly, his mind elsewhere. He’d fallen back in time again, back twenty-one years ago, with a gun in hand and a frightened doomed man in front of him desperately trying to stay alive.

The sweat on the man’s brow

The shaking hands as he fumbled to open the door

His entire body quivering with fear and desperation, his voice shaky

He’d been afraid… so afraid.

I didn’t see anything

Please

“James,” he snapped to attention upon Yori saying his name. Yori was looking at him with worry written all across his face. His concern only made Bucky feel worse.

“You’re tired?” Yori asked.

Bucky took a moment to realise what had happened. He’d zoned out again. Dissociated was what Christina called it. Those moments when his mind transported him back in time while his body remained motionless and empty in the present.

“Yeah…” he stammered.

Yori looked sympathetic and suggested it was time to leave. Bucky moved mechanically, on auto pilot, digging out his card to pay for the meal, waving off Yori’s objections, left a sizable tip on the table, and then followed Yori out of the door.

As soon as he was outside he lit himself a cigarette, and immediately felt a calm wash over him as he completed the familiar and comforting actions of pushing a cigarette between his lips, of lighting it, and inhaling deeply. The fog in his brain dissipated in an instant.

This was that trench that Christina was talking about, he realised, the trench in the brain that is caused by habits and addictions. How easy and comforting it was to return to it when the mind was in turmoil.
 

There will be times that returning to that trench is just the only thing you can do. It’s not failure

“Here,” Yori said, “pass me one of those.”

Bucky frowned at him.

“Whatever happened to don’t smoke you’ll die young?” he asked.

“I’m 87,” Yori told him. “Dying young is not a concern of mine.”

Bucky could hardly disagree with that so he passed Yori over a cigarette.

“My neighbours don’t believe you exist,” Yori told him. “I told them all about the nice young American who speaks Japanese like a native and they think I’m making you up. You should come back with me so I can show you off.”

Bucky smiled wanly, he had absolutely no desire to ever return to Yori’s apartment. And he certainly had no desire to meet any of Yori’s neighbours. What if someone recognised him?

“Maybe another time, Yori,” he said. “I have somewhere to be.”

“Maybe we can meet up again,” Yori suggested eagerly.

Bucky hesitated. He should never have let things progress this far in the first place, and he knew it would be irresponsible to continue to meet with Yori but as he looked at Yori’s expectant and hopeful face he knew that he couldn’t let the old man down. He owed Yori a debt that could never be fully repaid.

With a pang the thought crossed his mind that it should be Yori’s son taking him out to lunch, and being given advice about relationships. It should be Yori’s son listening to Yori moan about the locals on the telephone. It should be Yori’s son being shown off proudly by his father to his neighbours. But Yori didn’t have that. Not anymore. And he would never have that again because Bucky had taken his son from him in the most brutal of ways.

Bucky knew that if Yori rang again that he would answer, and no matter what Yori asked of him, he would oblige him.

After they parted ways, Bucky headed back to his own apartment with a heavy heart.

He remembered upon his return that he had to take his medication. Two large pills twice a day, to be reviewed on a weekly basis.

Today was day four and so far they’d had no effect whatsoever, just as he had predicted. He’d raised this with Christina recently, declaring forthrightly that he was right, the medication was pointless. She’d been undeterred, informing him that it would likely take a couple of weeks for any effect to be noticeable. He remained unconvinced and sceptical but he took them anyway because he’d promised he would. It would only be a matter of time before this experiment failed and they’d agree to take him off them; he just had to wait it out.

Bucky took his pills and then sat in silence and reflected on the situation he’d managed to get himself in with Yori.

He ought to tell Christina about Yori; he knew that what he was doing was wrong and he knew that Christina would tell him to stop talking to the old man. But then what effect would that have on Yori if he just suddenly vanished with no explanation? Yes he could block Yori’s number, he could also get a new telephone number easily enough so Yori wouldn’t know how to call him. Yori had no idea where he lived, it would be an easy matter to vanish, but surely Yori would wonder why? The only other solution was to tell Yori the truth, to admit to killing his son. Bucky couldn’t even begin to imagine how that conversation could go, and it would only end badly.

He cursed himself for his stupidity. When would he ever learn how to make sensible choices?

Not only that, Bucky realised, but he also ran the risk of being recognised while he was out and about with Yori. Hell, there was even the chance that Yori himself might put two and two together – he’d even grabbed Bucky’s arm earlier! Thankfully it had not been the metal one, but that would have given the game away.

Changing his look and his hair meant nothing due to the presence of his metal arm. Everyone knew the Winter Soldier had a metal arm, it wasn’t exactly commonplace. The more time he spent with one person, the greater the chance of being discovered.

And then it suddenly occurred to him for the first time since he’d been released that he knew next to nothing about what had been said about him to the public. What had people been told about him?

One day he’d been the Winter Soldier, one of the most wanted men on the planet, being chased by army and police with orders to shoot on sight, and the next he was an Avenger and forgiven for all of his crimes. What had people been told about why? What explanation had been given for the last eighty years of his history? And what did people think about it?

Before he could stop himself, without giving himself the time to realise this would probably be yet another very bad idea, he’d pulled his phone out of his pocket and was typing his own name into google.

James Barnes

Google came up with auto complete suggestions without him even selecting anything, and words jumped out at him:

Winter Soldier

Captain America

Bucky Barnes

Hydra

Steve Rogers

Dead or alive

James Barnes history with Hydra

Who did James Barnes kill Winter Soldier

His finger hovered over the last option as his brain slowly caught up to what he was doing.

This was not a good idea. Even just the blank google page with the auto complete suggestions told him everything he needed to know. He was James Barnes the Winter Soldier. That’s what people thought of him.

He remembered that the Smithsonian had been planning to update his exhibit to include recent events. It must be done by now. What would they say had happened to him? What explanation had been given as to why he had been set free?

Maybe he should go back there and see what people were being told about him.

His mind rebelled violently at the thought. He had no positive thoughts about the Smithsonian after his experiences there a few months ago and he’d be happy to never return.

He added the word why into the search bar before his name to see what new auto complete suggestions would be offered up.

Why James Barnes

Then he re-evaluated and changed it to:

Why Bucky Barnes

And this created new suggestions:

Why Bucky Barnes killed for Hydra

Why Bucky Barnes became the Winter Soldier

Why Bucky Barnes didn’t die in 1945

Why Bucky Barnes didn’t age

Why is Bucky Barnes an Avenger

Why is Bucky Barnes pardoned

He stared at that last option. That was the question he was asking himself, what did people know about why he had been pardoned? He barely knew himself why he’d been pardoned, and he had a keen idea that if he couldn’t understand it, then what chance did anyone else have?

He quickly deleted what he had typed.

Then he just wrote

Bucky Barnes

and selected it without reading the suggestions.

His phone was immediately filled with photographs of his own face.

The first photo being the most famous one, he supposed, the one from the Smithsonian – the one taken when he’d enlisted. The other photographs on the screen were all Winter Soldier photographs. They must have been taken in 2014 he thought, the time when he was fighting Steve, blowing up cars and killing yet more innocent people – when Steve had recognised him. People must have been filming, taking photographs.

Those soulless eyes stared out at him through the screen and he gazed back into them. It felt… odd to be looking at himself like this. As Bucky gazed at his own self he felt a strange kind of disconnect. To see this man, all in black and harnessed up, covered in weaponry, that mask… those blank dead eyes… with the knowledge that this was him. This was himself, but it also wasn’t himself at the same time. Was that possible?  

It wasn’t him. At least, it wasn’t him anymore.  

He selected images at the top and scrolled through them.

He was relieved to see, as he continued to swipe up on the phone, that there were no photos of what he looked like now. The most recent photos appeared to be from 2014.

Yes, he thought, these were definitely taken from 2014. Photos of the Winter Soldier interspersed with photographs that had been taken during the war.

He didn’t linger too long on those as they featured the other Howling Commandos, now all long dead.

Instead he scrolled back up to the top and selected

News

With the vague thought that he might learn something useful about what people had been told about him.

The first result screamed out at him from the page:

Bucky Barnes murdered my grandfather in front of me – Howling Commando granddaughter shares all

A little photo to the right of it – a Winter Soldier photo along with a black and white photograph of Timothy Dugan.

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat.

Howling Commando granddaughter

4th January 1978 – the date rose into his mind, unbidden.

Dugan and Dernier.

They’d been together in the South of France. There had been children there.

A girl and a boy.

Dugan’s grandchildren.

Dugan had had two sons, he remembered. He’d written letters to them frequently during the war. Before every mission he’d written letters to his family, and upon his return he always wrote letters immediately to reassure them he was well.

And so Dugan had had grandchildren, who’d been there with him and Dernier the night they were murdered by the Winter Soldier.

Witnesses to a brutal and savage killing.

He’d thought he’d killed them all. He never left witnesses. It was a rule that had been deeply burned into him, a rule that surpassed all the memory wipes.

Never leave witnesses

But she’d survived? How? And what about the boy?

His finger hovered over the link that would probably answer these questions. Dimly in the back of his mind he remembered how unsatisfying and upsetting it had been when he’d seen the video of Howard Stark, and the thought crossed his mind that if he clicked through he would probably regret it.

He couldn’t help himself. He had to know.

The link took him through to an article. The top of the page featured one of the pictures taken of him in 2014, alongside his enlistment photo and a photo of Timothy Dugan. Underneath that was a photograph of a woman who looked to be in her mid-50s or thereabouts. Under the photo was written her name Elizabeth Dugan and her date of birth.

Bucky stared at the woman’s photograph, trying to picture her as she would have been 46 years ago. Pre-teen, he thought. About 12 or 13 years old. The boy had been younger. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed as he tried to will this memory into his mind. Blue eyes. Brown hair. She was greying now but back then she’d had dark brown hair. She’d been tall for her age, with a butterfly clip in her hair which flowed loose around her shoulders. A pale pink dress, unpatterned apart from a line of flowers along the neckline and the bloodstains staining the pretty pink with a deep dark reddish brown.

His eyes shot open.

Oh yes, he remembered this now. And he wished he didn’t. He’d known for quite some time now that he’d murdered two more of his former best friends in cold blood, but he’d known this as a cold hard fact without ever really delving properly into the memory of it.

It’s Timothy Dugan, Bucky, don’t you remember me?

He gasped as the memory of Dugan’s last words infiltrated his mind without his permission. He didn’t want to remember this. He didn’t want to know this.

And yet he couldn’t stop himself – his finger scrolled up on his phone almost of its own accord, revealing more of the article which he couldn’t resist reading.

It was over 45 years ago when Elizabeth Dugan, then 12 years old, was taken away for a trip by her grandfather along with her 8 year old brother, Michael. Corporal Timothy Dugan, most famously known as one of Captain America’s Howling Commandos, was her grandfather, and he took the children to visit his old friend and fellow Howling Commando the Frenchman Jacques Dernier in the South of France.

Bucky skimmed through the preamble and the detail, desperate to get to information which would be more relevant.

He found a section quoting Elizabeth herself, and read through it, his heart beat getting faster and faster with every word he read.

I told everyone who would listen she was quoted as saying that it was James Barnes, but they told me I was crazy. It was only three years after the 30 year anniversary event and my grandfather and his friend were telling war stories. So everyone told me that I was confused, that I mixed up the stories with the man who murdered my grandfather. That it was trauma messing with my memory. But I knew I wasn’t wrong. I heard my grandfather call him by his name. The man with the knives and the metal arm, he called him Bucky.

Dugan’s last words rose back up in Bucky’s mind again


It’s Timothy Dugan, Bucky, don’t you remember me?

Bucky skipped through more filler, his eyes and mind only fixated on what Elizabeth herself had to say.

I thought we were going to die. He held a knife to my throat but then he walked away. I don’t know why. Maybe he hadn’t expected us to be there. Maybe he didn’t kill children.

That wasn’t it. Bucky had murdered children. He couldn’t remember enough of the night to have the first idea why he would have held a knife to the girls’ throat and then walked away. He read on:

I told everyone it was Bucky Barnes who murdered my grandfather. I was in therapy for years, all those professionals trying to convince me I was mad. When I was 18 I met with Margaret Carter, she was Director of SHIELD then, and I told her about it. I thought she believed me. But then she returned and said that I was mistaken and my grandfather’s killer had been apprehended and had killed himself in a French prison. So I gave up.

The article then provided detail about SHIELD and Agent Carter, making reference to her connection to Captain America… Bucky skimmed over that detail.

And then I was vindicated Elizabeth continued I’d spent my whole life being told I was crazy and then suddenly there he was: The Winter Soldier in 2014. I watched him on the news blowing up those cars and shooting all those people. And all that trauma, all that terror and the darkness within my past that I’d squashed right down and hid away, it all came roaring back the moment I saw that metal arm. And then in 2016 he was all over the news again along with his name: James Barnes.

There followed information about the events of 2016… the Sokovia Accords… Captain America aiding and abetting a wanted criminal (him)… and going on the run…

And then I vanished for 5 years, Elizabeth said, and after I returned I discovered that he’d been pardoned and released. And no-one talked to me about it. No-one asked me my opinion. There may have been a reason for it, but no-one bothered telling me that the man who murdered my grandfather in front of me when I was a child was free in the world. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what he’s doing. I could have walked past him in the street and I’d have been none the wiser. I’ve written letters to the White House, to my Government Representative, to the FBI – everyone and I’ve got nothing back. I’ve gone my whole life being ignored, being told I’m a liar, being made to believe I’m crazy. I deserve better than this. All I ask for is an explanation.

There was more of the article to read, but Bucky realised he had had enough. He skimmed through the following paragraphs to see if there were any more quotes from Elizabeth herself but it didn’t seem like it. The rest of the article appeared to be exploring facts about what was known about the Winter Soldier, what was known about Bucky Barnes, and he didn’t have the energy to read all this right now. And he was also getting fed up and unnerved by the constant photographs of his own face that popped up every second paragraph.

He put the phone down.

Well, he’d wanted some answers and it looked like he’d got them.

Be careful what you wish for, he thought. All those people who’d suffered because of him – friends and family of his victims – they were out there, still suffering, still seeking explanations, still seeking justice, and still seeking closure. There was Yori, who wanted to know how and why his son had died, and now there was Elizabeth Dugan who’d spent decades being told she was mad and who was still suffering to this day, desperate for answers she would likely never get.

How many more like them were out there?

How could he possibly even begin to atone for the things he’d done to them?

Notes:

If you've read my one shot 'My Lack of Control' you might recall that in this series Hydra made Bucky kill Dugan and Dernier back in 1978 (there will be a bit more on this in the next chapter so don't feel you need to read that story). This was my way of introducing a different (and hopefully better) version of the amends storyline that we see in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It's going to be part of Bucky's arc (along with Yori) of realising that he doesn't need to make amends and he doesn't need to ask forgiveness.

Chapter 19: The Darkness Within: Part Two

January 6^th 1978

 

He is in the Chair again

He remembers the Chair now… he’s not sure how he forgot about it. He has a feeling he always forgets

How does he forget this pain? This agony?

He’s not restrained… couldn’t he just get up? Couldn’t he just leave?

The moment the thought enters his mind he shoves it away

Leaving is not an option… he was told to be here… he has to remain… he has to comply

Then there is a voice:

“Do you remember the mission two days ago?”

He opens his eyes. He’d not realised they were tightly shut, bracing for the pain that has been coming and going in short bursts for… for how long? Since forever? He can’t remember anything else

Two men standing over him

He’s not sure who they are… but there’s authority to them and he knows, instinctually, that the man speaking is to be obeyed. Without question

There are more men in the room but further away. They are holding guns, guns to contain him in case he tries to break free

Why would they be worried about that? He complies… he always does

He shuts his eyes again

Another burst of lighting inside his head makes him jolt, and his breathing comes out in ragged, short gasps

“Mission report,” the second man says, "4th January 1978."

I don’t know

I don’t remember

More pain, more fire, more burning

“You left witnesses. Why?”

“What happened?”

“Mission report.”

Mission report

Mission report

Mission report

The words get swallowed up by the screaming in his head

I don’t remember

Protocol dictates never leave witnesses

He says that out loud

“Correct,” the man says. “So why did you?”

I don’t know. I don’t remember

I don’t leave witnesses. Never leave witnesses.

He must have said this out loud as well as he receives a slap across the face and one of the men swears and then there is more ripping pain tearing through his skull

“This isn’t effective,” the same man says. “This is a pointless waste of time. That idiot Rostov wiped his memory. Hydra’s greatest weapon is defective. I don’t know what they were thinking.”

Defective

His eyes shoot open at the word. He wants to contradict the man but he mustn’t speak out of turn

I’m not defective, he thinks

He says that out loud without meaning to

A mistake

Ivanov, the man who had been asking the questions and who had already struck the Soldier several times across the face over the last two hours, raised his hand ready to deal another blow across the Soldier’s face. The Soldier was speaking out of turn again. This wasn’t right, he was supposed to be obedient in all things, and yet the Soldier had returned from his mission in France reporting that he’d left alive two children. Unfortunately, that idiot Rostov had wiped his memory immediately after the Soldier had given his report, so now he couldn’t remember anything.

Hydra’s Greatest Weapon is defective Ivanov had just said, and his tone had been deliberately mocking. He made no secret of the fact that he had had a poor view of the Winter Soldier ever since he’d first met the man – if man he could be called.

Ivanov stayed his hand as Kozlov, a relatively new recruit, spoke up. He’d spent the last two hours of questioning the Soldier with his head in that damn notebook. It was supposed to be an instruction manual, but nothing in it seemed to work properly.

 “The book says this is supposed to be effective for triggering his short term memory,” Kozlov said, “So I don’t know why it isn’t working.”

The Soldier’s eyes were now glued to the red notebook, Ivanov noticed with curiosity, and he looked fearful. Why fearful? He wasn’t supposed to remember anything.

“Then we carry on,” Ivanov said and gestured to the other man to continue with the electric shocks as per the instructions in the book. Low voltage; the Soldier wasn’t even restrained and didn’t have the mouth guard in.

The pain starts again

He scrunches up his eyes tight tight as if it could counter the pain

More questions. He has to focus on the questions

He feels dizzy, woozy and nauseous, his head is throbbing… and he hasn’t the first idea why he is here, what is happening, or what is being asked of him

As the pain continues on and on… he forgets everything. He forgets the questions as they are asked, he forgets where he is, who he is with…

In his mind’s eye he is no longer in the Siberia base with the Russians, he is elsewhere. Somewhere unfamiliar. There is a little man with round glasses and a German accent. He is being tortured… and when you’re tortured you don’t answer questions you just say…

“32557038,” the Soldier slurred, “Barnes… Sergeant…”

Ivanov immediately slammed his fist down on the controls, unleashing a full blast of electric energy through the Soldier’s skull. He held his hand in place for several minutes, keeping the electricity flowing, watching as the Soldier writhed in front of him.

When he eventually lifted his hand the Soldier sagged in the Chair, a panting, wheezing and shaking mess. Ivanov surveyed him in disgust, trying to appear outwardly calm to project the image of being in control in front of Kozlov and the guards, but his heart was beating very very fast at how close they had all come to immense danger.

The shocks had somehow accessed information the Soldier was never supposed to retrieve.

“No more of this,” he snapped, snatching the red notebook from Kozlov’s hands and whacking him on the side of the head with it in the process. “You haven’t the first idea what you’re doing! I’m sick of this.”

He flicked aggressively through the notebook.

“This is just one fuck up after another,” Ivanov continued, his entire body shaking with his fury and his fear. “That arsehole Markarov had a lot to answer for. He fucked up the Soldier and now I have to deal with his mess! I almost wish he was still alive so I could kill him again, much more slowly and painfully.”

He found the page he was looking for and shoved the book back into Kozlov’s hands, gesturing to the page as he did so.

“What were they thinking!?” Ivanov exclaimed as Kozlov’s eyes roved over the page. “Zola was a madman thinking he could make a mindless automaton out of a human. Was this really the best they could do?”

“You want to complete a full reset?” Kozlov asked.

“Just do it,” Ivanov said, “and put him away. I’m not dealing with this anymore. He’s defective and of no further use.”

Nothing makes sense

People speaking around him and he can’t make sense of what they are saying

So much noise

Who is screaming? There is so much screaming… he can’t focus on anything else

Someone steps over and restrains his arms

He lets them

And something is pulled down tightly over his head and he knows – he knows, but how he knows he has no idea– that this is bad and he flinches away

“Soldier: Comply!” the instruction is clear; it makes its way through all the confusion and all the noise and it’s the only thing that makes any sense

So he does

He complies

 

Present day:

“I read an article about myself yesterday,” Bucky told Christina the day after his meeting with Yori, and his foolish googling of himself.

Christina sat up slightly in her chair, looking intrigued. They’d not spoken about much since he’d arrived for his appointment just under half an hour ago. There’d been the usual battle of wills about his medication which was becoming routine for his therapy sessions now – he’d spent 10 minutes moaning about how they weren’t doing anything, and she’d been supremely unhelpful by telling him to be patient. She’d then asked him what he’d done since their last session – a question which had internally sent him into a mild panic as he absolutely did not want to tell her about the phone calls and then his meeting with Yori Nakajima. So instead he’d opted to sit in silence, feeling sulky and rebellious and annoyed. Annoyed that he had to take these useless drugs that did nothing, annoyed at himself for making stupid decisions, annoyed that he was even in this situation in the first place.

Christina had seemed to sense that this was not the time to push, so instead she’d been sitting patiently for the last 20 minutes, waiting for Bucky himself to be the one to break the silence. Which he did, of course, because he hated her silences.

“It was about Elizabeth Dugan,” he continued. He then fell silent as he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say about it.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen that too.”

She waited a moment for him to continue with the conversation, but he didn’t. He was already regretting bringing this up.

“Was this something you wanted to talk about today?” she prompted him.

Bucky fiddled with a loose thread on one of the cushions and shook his head.

“It’s not often you bring up a topic for us to talk about,” she observed. “This seems like it must be important.”

Bucky frowned down at his lap and remained silent.

“I imagine it brought up some rather bad memories for you,” Christina said. “Did it cause you any issues?”

Actually, Bucky suddenly realised, it hadn’t. After swiping the article away and putting his phone to rest he’d just sat there the whole night. He’d not gone crazy; he’d not done anything stupid. He’d just sat there, trying hard but failing not to thinking about it.

And then he’d fallen into a disturbed sleep and his dreams had been filled with what had happened afterwards. After he’d left the witnesses, and Ivanov and Kozlov had been questioning him about it. They’d wanted to know why he’d left the children alive. He didn’t have the answers then, and he still didn’t have the answers now.

He licked his lips.

“I just keep thinking,” he said quietly, “what it must have been like for those children to see… to see me. To see what I did.”

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut but this could not stop the memory from returning to the forefront of his mind, as it had done many times since the evening before.

A Sharp blood drenched knife being dragged across Dernier’s throat, a gasp, a gurgle, blood spurting out of the wound.

By the time he had sliced Dernier’s throat his body had already been cut apart.

His instructions had been to use knives. Get up close. No guns. No mask.

They’d wanted him to be seen

Floor slippery with blood. Dugan crawling across the floor, trying to get to his grandchildren who were huddled in the corner. A girl and a boy, the girl holding the boy’s face into her chest so he couldn’t see anything.

Grabbing Dugan by the leg and pulling him back. Lifting his broken and cut body into the air and he screamed and yelled and tried to get away. And then…

Recognition. Like it would later be with Howard, almost two decades later. Bucky remembered so clearly that look on Dugan’s face as his eyes met Bucky’s and suddenly realised who it was who was killing them.

Eyes widened. “Bucky,”  

The words echoed in his head.

“Bucky, it’s Timothy Dugan, Bucky. Don’t you remember me?”

Dugan’s hands grasping his at his throat and Bucky lifted him in the air with his metal arm, pushing him back against the wall.

And then…

 

Christina said his name, and this brought him back to the present.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly over at her.

“It was like being in an abattoir,” he said flatly.

“Tell me more about the children,” Christina directed him swiftly.

The smell of urine bringing his attention back to the presence of the others in the room. He’d been told to expect two people, no more than that. The two targets now eliminated. But there were witnesses

Don’t leave witnesses. Never leave witnesses.

And so he wouldn’t.

 

“Elizabeth said she’d been in therapy for years,” Bucky said. “I can’t even begin to fathom… they were children. To see that. To see me… at my very worst… I created a blood bath Christina, and those children witnessed it. I butchered them. I cut them up.”

He choked on his words, a deep heaving breath, before he was able to continue.

“They were my friends,” he finished.

Once upon a time, they’d been his friends. Towards the last months of the war he’d drifted apart from the rest of the group and in the process had lost those close bonds. But they’d been as close as brothers once, before everything had gone wrong.

Things had never been the same between him and Dugan after Dugan had found out he liked men.

You’re a disappointment Bucky he’d said. Those had been practically the last words Dugan had ever said to him. Until over thirty years later when he was in the process of ripping the man apart in front of his grandchildren.

Don’t you remember me?

 

He drew a shaky breath.

“It was deliberate, you know,” he said. “Hydra sent me to kill them as a test, because I wasn’t functioning properly in the 70s. There’d been this guy… this general…”

General Markarov he thought.

“He didn’t follow the protocols properly and it messed me up in a big way. I was causing a lot of problems for the people that followed him, and they gave me this assignment as part of testing me… testing my compliance…” he frowned, trying to push aside the memory of what had happened afterwards out of his head. He’d failed to follow instructions properly. He’d left witnesses and this had led to very painful consequences.

Restored me to fucking factory settings he thought bitterly.

“They told me not to use guns; I had to use knives. I had to get up close… and make it slow. They wanted me to be recognised.  And I was recognised. Elizabeth was correct in that article when she said she heard my name. They wanted to see if I would see it through to the end, to prove that Hydra had full control over me.”

“That’s unspeakably cruel of them,” Christina remarked. “Do you agree with that observation, James?”

Bucky stared at her, taken aback by the question. “Of course,” he replied, his confusion evident in his tone.

“I think it’s important when speaking about this,” Christina explained, “to acknowledge Hydra’s complicity in this, and their cruelty.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows but refrained from making a comment, he made a small noise of non-commital agreement instead. He didn’t find this helpful. He was trying to talk through something horrendous he had done, and he really didn’t need Christina nattering away about things that weren’t relevant.

“Tell me about the children,” Christina asked. “You spared the children.”

 “I was always told not to leave witnesses,” Bucky said. “I never leave witnesses. That’s a rule. I mean it was a rule. Until I saw that article I thought I had killed them. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I remember what happened. Kind of.”

The little girls’ eyes were wide open now, staring at him as he approached. Her hands so tightly clasped around her brother’s shoulders it must have hurt. She was shaking from head to toe. The smell of urine came from one of the children, but he couldn’t tell which one. The smell joined the stench of death that already filled the room.

 “So what happened?” Christina asked. ”If those were the rules then why did you break them?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said. “The children were right there, watching as I, well… She had her arms around her little brother, covering his eyes. And she was shivering. She was terrified. And I walked up to them and I was going to…” he made a movement with his arm, imagining the knife, imagining running it through the neck of that little girl.

“And then I just…” his voice cracked, “…I just left them. I walked away.”

“Do you remember what you were thinking before you walked away?” she asked.

Bucky shook his head. “I just remember that I didn’t want to kill them. So I didn’t.”

“So you did a good thing,” Christina said, “you saved their lives.”

Bucky chewed his bottom lip as he considered this. It wasn’t so simple – of course it couldn’t be that simple.

“I did spare them,” he said slowly, “but why them? Why not anyone else? If I could make a choice like that for them, why couldn’t I do that any other time?”

And therein lay the crux of his distress about the situation. He knew he had done good by sparing the children, that this one time he had managed to stop himself, break the conditioning, and walk away – but why had he only been able to do it this once? What about everyone else he had killed? All those time he’d killed other children – why not them? Why not Dugan himself? Or Howard? Or Yori’s son? Every single one of the myriad of deaths he had caused – why could he not have simply walked away?

“It may have been the situation itself,” Christina said. “You’d been recognised, your name had been spoken, and you weren’t expecting children there. On top of that, you said that you’d been causing issues for your handlers. Maybe it all culminated in causing you enough confusion that when you were faced with the children the real you managed to reemerge as it were, just for that moment. Like what happened in 2014. You said that your mind was compromised in 2014 which is what made it possible for Steve to get through to you. The brain is a complicated thing, James, and Hydra put your brain through a lot of physical trauma and stress.”

“Maybe,” Bucky said, feeling unconvinced. His mind had automatically entered guilt mode, still racing through examples of all the times he didn’t manage to take regain control and spare lives because he wasn’t strong enough.

 “I just think of all that horror I made her witness,” Bucky said. “Imagine seeing that as children. Her and her brother – to have that memory as a child. God, Christina the things I did to them, to my friends. It was brutal. I butchered her grandfather in front of her. I might have spared her life, and the life of her brother, but that’s not enough. That’s nowhere near good enough.”

“The language you’re using is very self-critical and blaming,” Christina remarked. “You keep saying ‘I’ –  ‘I think of the horror I made her witness,’” she quoted him, “and ‘the things I did to them’. Can you tell me why you were doing these things? Why were you there?”

Bucky stared down at the floor, his heart beating very fast. He knew what she was doing and he hated it. She wanted him to open his mouth and say:

Hydra made me do it

I didn’t have a choice

They murdered those people, not me

And the worst of them all:

It wasn’t my fault

All these phrases played out in his mind. He knew this is what she wanted him to say and he wouldn’t say it. He wouldn’t say any of them. He couldn't. 

“It’s difficult for you to say isn’t it?” she asked him, “because the truth doesn’t fit the narrative you’ve built for yourself. You can’t bear to even begin to accept that these things might not be your fault.”

Bucky groaned audibly and he felt his metal fingers clench. He hated it when others tried to absolve him, tried to make him feel less guilty. Steve had done it as well. He could no longer convince Steve of his guilt, but maybe he could find the words to convince Christina.

“Steve used to say that,” Bucky said.

Christina nodded, “I remember you telling me,” she said.

 “Steve had this view of me, which I couldn’t live up to,” he continued. “I told you before he kept saying how everything I did as the Winter Soldier wasn’t my fault. The way he talked about it… it was like he thought I was two different people. Like the Hulk, you know?”

He paused for a moment, waiting for her to nod to show that she understood what he was talking about, and then he carried on.

“Like there was Bucky Barnes on one side and the Winter Soldier on the other. But it wasn’t like that. I am the Winter Soldier. And I am Bucky Barnes as well. I’m both. I’m some kind of mixture between the two. The Winter Soldier with the face and memories of a dead man. And I found being around Steve really difficult because of that. Because ultimately he believed that with the programming removed I was the same person I was before 1945, but the programming didn’t make me into the Winter Soldier. The things I could do – that was all me. No-one in Hydra taught me anything. Everything I did was nothing I’d not done before.”

He’d never enjoyed killing people. He’d never got pleasure out of it during the war. But he'd killed regardless, with hesitation perhaps, but he'd never refused. Killing had always been a necessary evil. 

 “I was so good at killing people even before I was the Winter Soldier,” Bucky said, “I’ve always been skilled at fighting, skilled with guns, good at learning languages. I could be vicious. Violent. And I followed orders and did what I was told.”

“You were a soldier,” Christina reminded him. “That was your job, as it is for all soldiers.”

What does a good soldier do?

A good soldier follows orders

“Steve didn’t,” Bucky cut across her swiftly. “They tried controlling him, but very early on he pushed back. He made his own choices, carved his own path. But me…”

He shook his head in disgust at himself.

“Let’s just say I was only ever a few steps away from the Winter Soldier before Hydra ever even got their hands on me in Krausberg. I did things before I became the Winter Soldier that I often wish had remained erased from my memory. I was capable of the most brutal and horrendous things.”

I’m not here to disapprove of you Steve had said once, I’m concerned. You’re not yourself. The way you are. The way you’ve been acting. It’s not you. You know what I’m talking about. You know that what you did in Poland is not right.

What had he done to prompt that accusation? He’d gone wild, rushing forward without any sense, taken over by adrenaline and desperation, and he’d instinctually shot an unarmed man in the process of surrendering. And it had lead to that devastating and catastrophic argument that he and Steve had had the day before he fell from the train.

 “I was always capable. I still am. Everyone is right to be afraid of me,” he said, his thoughts going to how people had acted around him when he’d been in hospital, and then to the emergency response protocol they had in place in case he went crazy. “The Winter Soldier hasn’t gone away. It’s a constant presence simmering beneath the surface. It’s a part of me… it’s the darkness within. It’s always been there. Steve didn’t get that. He refused to see that. I am not and cannot be what he wanted me to be.”

 “What did he want you to be?” Christina asked.

“Me,” Bucky said simply. “Myself. As I was. Before it all went wrong.”

Before the train. Before Hydra. Before Krausberg and Captain America. Before the war. Before all the lies and secrets he starting keeping from Steve because he’d been so afraid of losing him. Back when they were just two little boys, brothers, who did everything together. A hundred years ago, back when they were just Steve and Bucky.

Before all the deaths, the guilt and the horror.  He wished he could go back there and get a second chance to undo everything that had been done. To go back and make different choices, the right choices and spare the world from the monster he’d been so easily turned into. To undo all his regrets and wipe away the poison he’d inflicted on everything he touched.

He remembered his sickly little brother, confined to his bed, coughing and ill, scribbling in his sketchbooks for hours on end. Filling up every piece of paper from corner to corner in order to get the most use out of the pages as his family had very little money to spare for recreational activities.

He’d sit next to Steve’s bed and read to him while Steve sketched. It boggled his mind still that his scrawny little brother became transformed into Captain America. Strong, brave, heroic, incorruptible. Everything that Bucky himself was not. He was Steve’s dark, flawed mirror. A twisted version of him.  

 

Christina, wisely, chose not to push the matter further, and instead changed the topic completely to start talking about his food diary that he’d been neglecting to fill out for several weeks now. Bucky knew that experience had told her that he always reacted badly when she tried to push his thought processes down paths he was not willing to go, and attempting would just cause resistance. He was ridiculously stubborn, frustratingly so, and the more she pushed the more he resisted and the more entrenched his view point would become. He knew that she felt he would get there gradually in his own time, make these realisations himself. He couldn’t possibly imagine any scenario in which he could ever turn around and say it wasn’t my fault. To ascribe blame to anyone else other than him.  

It would never happen.

Unless…

As Christina nattered on about foods that were high in calories his mind suddenly snapped back to a question that he’d been obsessing over for some time. The unanswered question that he knew was supremely important. That he knew could explain so much.

I know that what happened in 1960 is quite possibly one of the most important things that has ever happened to me, even though I have no idea why


That’s what he’d told Christina only a short while ago.

The question resurfaced in his mind: what exactly had happened in 1960?

His heart beat picked up speed and he willed himself to appear calm and not react. To remain placid and neutral on the outside despite the veritable whirlwind of thoughts that were rampaging through his mind. The last thing he wanted was for Christina to notice his sudden change in demeanour and ask him what he was thinking about, for he knew she would not approve of the plan that was starting to take form.

It had suddenly occurred to him where he might be able to find the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 20: The Darkness Within: Part Three

Notes:

This chapter sees the return of Brock Rumlow who has appeared in a prequel story (you don’t need to read that, everything is explained in this chapter). He won’t show up often, literally just in this chapter and once again somewhere in Act 3. So he’s not going to play any kind of main role or cause any significant issues. This story is slow burn enough for Sam and Bucky without throwing in more obstacles. He shows up twice and that’s it. Also you don’t have to wait until Act 3 to find out what happened in 1960, we’ll find that out much sooner.

Rumlow’s sole purpose in this story is to act as a device for Bucky to address certain aspects of his Hydra experience, and there were so few people for me to choose from as everyone is dead. Being that Bucky in the Captain America films has never been the main character of his own story, he never got to face any of the people who wronged him – they were all killed / destroyed by someone else. (Zola, Pierce, Rumlow, Karpov, et al.) I live in hope that he might still yet get this opportunity in the MCU but I am not very optimistic.

So for this story Rumlow never got exploded in Civil War. I guess someone else did. He’s also not as injured as he was from the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Warnings for the chapter: There is discussion of rape. No depictions, just talking about it.

The Darkness within: Part Three

 

 

It was now or never.

Decision making time.

Bucky knew that no matter what he chose, it would be the wrong decision. It always was. But he was running out of time. It was Sunday, and he had to attend therapy tomorrow morning. He had only a few hours left before he’d have to catch a flight back home. And then he’d attend therapy tomorrow and Christina would ask him how he’d spent the weekend, and she’d drag it out of him. She always did. And he’d never get another chance.

What happened in 1960?

He knew he had to know the answer. He couldn’t believe how long it had taken him to realise where he could go to get the answer – from the very source who’d put what happened in 1960 in his head in the first place.

This has happened before you know… Before my time. Sometime in the 60s I believe. You went awol. Missing for about a year. They got you back though. No matter how long you get away for, you will always be brought back.

Brock Rumlow.

This was a man who should be dead twice over, but somehow always managed to survive, who always managed to land on his feet no matter what. Somehow he’d evaded death, evaded prison and ended up a free man, just like Bucky himself.

The man hadn’t been difficult to find. He’d returned to his apartment in DC. Bucky had been there a couple of times as the Winter Soldier, he had no difficulty finding it now. And there he’d seen Rumlow, for the first time since 2015, limping out of the front door, leaning heavily on a walking stick.

He’d blown a building up on Rumlow and a whole load of other Hydra minions back in 2015. They’d tracked him down to Slovenia and cornered him, but it was a trap he’d set for them. Bucky had rigged the place to explode and as Rumlow had been in the process of trying to talk him down, trying to get him to return to Hydra, he’d managed to blow up the place and leave the man for dead. Only he’d not died.

Bucky’s research into the man had told him that Rumlow had spent the following five years in a coma. He’d woken up during the blip, recovered enough to stand trial and was imprisoned. But then the blip was reversed, 3.5 billion people returning worldwide, the prisons overflowing and he, along with a multitude of criminals, had been released and unleashed upon the world in order to make room.

Bucky had been following the man since he’d arrived in DC early Friday evening. It appeared that Rumlow now lived a fairly boring and uneventful life. Since Friday he’d spent most of the time in his apartment, he had no visitors, and he only left twice to go to the local grocery store.  He had difficulty walking, hence the stick, and his face was scarred, but aside from that he looked much the same as he always had. He was still clearly a deeply unpleasant man from the rude way he’d spoken to another customer who had accidently hit him with their trolley.

Bucky gazed across the street at Rumlow’s building feeling apprehensive and anxious. It was one thing to be here and follow the man. It would be quite another to actually walk up and speak to him. It could put everything into jeopardy – he’d tell Christina and she’d have to report back that he’d met up with a former Hydra member, which was something that really couldn’t be ignored. It could put his freedom and his pardon at risk. Was it really worth it?

Yes, he thought. It must be

Bucky had always been the kind of person that once he had an idea enter his head, he had to follow through with it straight away.

Christina’s voice weakly entered his mind, a half-hearted attempt to talk himself out of doing something he would probably later regret.

What he ought to do, he knew, was to step back, ring Christina and let her talk him out of doing something monumentally stupid.

But he’d never get this opportunity again.

He took a deep breath and went for it.

He’d not thought this through at all, he realised as he strode towards the building and pressed the intercom for Rumlow’s apartment. He’d not actually prepared anything and had no idea what he was going to say to the other man.

But he’d already pressed the buzzer, and he knew Rumlow was at home because he’d seen the man walk in less than two hours ago. Maybe he should leave before the man answered.

The three seconds that passed since he pressed the buzzer felt like an eternity, and he was just making the decision that he should walk away when that familiar voice flowed out from the intercom.

“Yeah?”

Oh God Bucky thought. He’d not been prepared for this. Not at all. He didn’t know what to say. He opened his mouth and closed it several times.

“What is it?” Rumlow barked down the intercom, sounding impatient.

 Bucky took a breath and leaned his forehead against the wall next to the intercom.

“It’s… uh…” he paused. He wasn’t sure how to announce himself. Names whirled through his head.

James… Bucky… the Soldier

He winced at the thought.

“For fuck’s sake,” he heard Rumlow say and he felt a rush of panic at the worry that the other man might just hang up.

He made up his mind.

“It’s Barnes,” he said softly into the intercom.

That had to be enough for Rumlow to realise who he was. It had to be. He didn’t think he could say anything else.

There was silence for a long while. Bucky might have thought the other man had hung up were it not for the quiet breathing he could hear.

And then:

“Come on up,” Rumlow instructed. The door buzzed and unlocked. Bucky pulled it open before he allowed himself to think twice, and let himself in.

Rumlow lived on the top floor. Bucky took the stairs. It seemed to take an age to reach the top. All the while the little voice in his head told him to turn around, to leave, to call Christina before he got in too deep. And he did falter once or twice, but the thought of the information that he was seeking urged him onwards.

And then he was at the top of the stairs, and then down the corridor, and then outside Rumlow’s door which swung open as he approached and –

Oh God

 – there he was.

Bucky’s heart leapt into his throat as he gazed into the hard, dark eyes of the man who had pretty much been his whole world for almost twenty years.

 Rumlow gestured him into the apartment without saying anything and shut the door behind them. Bucky avoided making eye contact as Rumlow limped over to the kitchen table and sat down, gesturing to Bucky to sit down opposite him. Bucky sank into the chair, trying to project an aura of calm and confidence. He wasn’t sure he was being successful. At least Rumlow wasn’t a super soldier and couldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating.

“I thought you’d be by sooner,” Rumlow said conversationally, as if they were old friends who’d just been out of touch for a time. “We’ve both been out of prison for a while, I wondered when you’d come to visit.”

“You weren’t in prison long enough,” Bucky said.

 “Hey, I served my time,” Rumlow said, and he gestured at his face and his leg, “and it’s not like I’m at high risk of reoffending. Look at me. Look at what you did to me.”

Bucky did look, feeling his face redden with shame and… was that guilt? For fuck’s sake.

“Never mind,” Rumlow said. He pulled himself to his feet with a groan and moved over to the kitchen.

“I’m not so free anyway,” Rumlow said. He turned back to face Bucky and bent down to pull up the leg of his trousers. Bucky eye’s fell to see the monitoring device that was wrapped around his ankle. “I’m on my best behaviour all the time,” Rumlow told him. “The moment I go outside a mile radius, I get locked back up.”

Well that explained why Rumlow hadn’t gone anywhere all weekend other than the local shop, Bucky realised.

Rumlow pulled open a cupboard.

“You want coffee?” he asked as he pulled out two mugs.

Bucky ignored the question.

“Are you still in contact with anyone from Hydra?” he asked Rumlow suspiciously.

“I’m a changed man, Barnes,” Rumlow said as he filled the mugs with boiling water. “I have to be. Anyway, Hydra doesn’t exist anymore. It got decimated because of the blip. It couldn’t survive.”

Bucky didn’t believe that for a second. Hydra always survived.

Cut off one head and two more shall take its place

Weakened perhaps, but not gone. Transformed, maybe, into something else. Growing in secret like it had before, biding its time.

“You want milk?” Rumlow asked casually.

Bucky seethed internally. Rumlow’s casual attitude was deliberately done, he knew, in order to unsettle and rankle him.

He refused to answer the question.

“I believe you’re not Hydra anymore,” he said instead as Rumlow sat back down and placed two mugs of coffee on the table. “I know you gave up a lot of information in return for a reduced sentence. If Hydra were at full strength you’d be a dead man.”

Rumlow took a sip of his coffee nonchalantly.

“So I heard you got yourself a fancy pardon,” Rumlow said conversationally. “And you’re clearly not being monitored. You’re a completely free man. How did you wrangle that?”

Bucky stared at him in disbelief.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

Rumlow let out a snort, almost spitting out his coffee.

“Don’t make me laugh,” he said. “You don’t believe you deserve your pardon any more than you think I deserve to be out of prison. You haven’t forgotten surely, Barnes, that I saw all that shit you did? I was there. You cold hearted bloodthirsty bastard, always so good at your job. You know as well as I do that you shouldn’t be a free man, and yet you are. And why do you think that is?”

“I know why,” Bucky answered quietly.

“Because of Captain America,” Rumlow said scathingly. “Steve Rogers. Your brother… your best friend… You get to do all that shit and walk away a free man because of who you are. Is that fair? Is that justice?”

Bucky closed his eyes. How like Rumlow, he thought, to know exactly what buttons to push, to know exactly what to say that would cause the most damage.

When he opened his eyes he could see that Rumlow could tell his words had affected him; he looked victorious.

“Drink up,” Rumlow said.

Bucky automatically found himself reaching for the coffee before he suddenly stopped himself. He wasn’t going to follow any of Rumlow’s instructions. Over his dead body. Not anymore. Not ever again. That part of his life was over.

Instead he pulled off his right glove, reached into his pockets, drew out his cigarettes and lighter and lit one up. He didn’t ask permission and he felt a small thrill as he did so. He left his metal hand gloved. He didn’t think Rumlow would know about his new arm, and he sure as Hell wasn’t going to let him see it.

He could see Rumlow’s eyebrows raise as the other man watched him take a drag on the cigarette.

“Smoking, Soldier?” Rumlow asked lightly. “Really? You know those things can kill you.”

Bucky felt a flash of annoyance at how Rumlow addressed him.

“I’ll risk it,” he said bluntly. “And don’t call me that. You know my name. You know who I am. You always knew. How…?”

He stopped himself. He was at risk of revealing too much to the other man, showing his vulnerabilities. Rumlow already knew so much about him, knew how to hurt him. He had to guard himself from giving away too much.

How could you? was what he wanted to ask. How could anyone be so cruel?

He wasn’t naïve. He knew people were capable of immense cruelty. But Rumlow had known who he was, all of them had known. Even after Steve was found and brought home back in 2011 they’d known but let it carry on regardless. How is such maliciousness possible? What makes people capable of acting like that? So many people over so many years… facilitating it, enabling it, perpetuating all these horrific and horrible things.

“You know,” Rumlow said after realising that Bucky wasn’t going to finish his question, “we were never officially told who you were. I think the Russians had forgotten by then. But when Pierce went to Siberia to meet with you he recognised you immediately. It was plain to see. Even with all the hair…” he waved a hand in front of Bucky’s face, “…you’d barely changed from your photographs. Pierce was practically giddy when he brought you back here from Russia. We all were. I wanted to throw a little party; I even got a banner saying welcome home for you and hung it over the Cyro Chamber while you were sleeping.”

“No you didn’t,” Bucky said impatiently.

Rumlow shrugged. He looked like he was enjoying himself immensely. Bucky wondered if Rumlow was as calm on the inside as he was portraying himself on the outside. He must be at least a little bit scared of him. He couldn’t be that confident that he still had power over him, surely? Bucky may be tamed, but he could still be dangerous, he could still be deadly if he chose to be. And Rumlow hadn’t even asked why Bucky was here yet. For all he knew Bucky was here for vengeance. Was Rumlow really so secure in himself to have the confidence that no matter what he’d walk out of this alive?

Rumlow leaned back casually in his chair, balancing it on the two back legs.

“You know, I preferred the old you, Barnes,” he said. “I’m not so into this new look,” he waved a hand towards Bucky’s hair, “or your new attitude. You look better with long hair; pretty, you know? And you’re more fun with brain damage.”

Bucky stared at Rumlow, uncertain of how to respond, then lowered his eyes and took another drag on the cigarette. Yes, this had been a bad idea. He should just get up and walk out. He had just about resolved himself to do exactly that when Rumlow spoke again.

“Why are you here?” Rumlow asked, finally asking that question. “What do you want from me?”

Bucky open his mouth to respond. Closed it. Frowned. Now was the time to ask the question, surely? And yet… he wasn’t sure he wanted to reveal his purpose just yet.

Ask him what he knows about 1960 his mind screamed at him.

“You want an apology, is that it?” Rumlow asked, his voice dripping with scorn.

“No,” Bucky said swiftly, lifting his head up to meet Rumlow’s gaze, “that’s not it.”

“Good,” Rumlow said, “because you’re not getting one.”

Bucky turned his head away, to hide the hurt that he knew would be showing in his eyes. For the umpteenth time he mentally cursed the loss of his long hair and his ability to hide behind it. Rumlow had always hated him hiding behind his hair, he remembered. Rumlow used to brush the hair back out of his eyes and force him to make eye contact.

“Look Barnes,” Rumlow said, learning forward, allowing the front legs of his chair to meet the ground again and placed his mug back on the table. Bucky looked up across at him.

“I’m not a decent guy,” Rumlow admitted. “No-one in Hydra is, okay? It’s kinda part of the job description. And you were pretty, and you had to do everything I said, and I took advantage of that. I admit it. I can’t possibly have been the first person to do so.”

Bucky finally picked up his coffee and took a swig, trying to still his nerves. He could feel his heart beat getting faster and faster. This wasn’t what he wanted Rumlow to talk about. This wasn’t what he wanted to be brought up. He didn’t want to think about this. A faint screaming started to build up inside his head.

Rumlow continued, well-aware of the effect his words were having.

“I’d do it again,” he said. “I’m not sorry. You were good. I was very fond of you. And you can’t tell me you didn’t like it. You were always so very responsive.”

Bucky forced himself to remain very still, not to show emotion, not to let Rumlow see the effect his words were having on him. But his face had always been so expressive; he’d never been good at hiding his feelings and emotions.

He could feel a blush spreading across his cheeks and, judging by Rumlow’s cruel smirk, he could tell that the other man had noticed.

And truth be told Rumlow wasn’t wrong. It shamed him to think it, but Rumlow was right. His traitorous body had responded to Rumlow’s attentions. It some weird, twisted way, Bucky had enjoyed their time together, back when he’d known no better. Rumlow had never been violent, not like the men Fennhoff had set on him, not like Markarov. With Rumlow it had been different. It wasn’t about punishment or a show of force it had been… connection. It had almost been affection.

And from where he was standing right now, his experiences with Rumlow were the closest thing he had had to a normal relationship since 1944. How twisted and sick was that?

Bucky continued not to say anything, just stared across the table at Rumlow, cigarette balanced between his fingertips and his gloved left hand resting on the coffee mug.

Rumlow took his silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“I am curious,” he said, “why you’ve not come forward and reported my role as your handler though, and everything else besides. Ever since I heard you’d been released I’ve been expecting something to happen. Someone to turn up to question me, arrest me, or make me disappear entirely. But you’ve not said anything. Why?”

There was an easy answer, Bucky thought, that came close to the truth, but he wasn’t sure he could say it without Rumlow calling him out on it. The easy answer would be to say that he was embarrassed and ashamed to admit out loud to others his experiences with Rumlow between the late 90s and 2014. He could also say that he couldn’t face having to give statements, repeating over and over again every little sordid detail and having to answer questions; he could say that he would never want any of this to become public knowledge which of course it would, spreading out on the internet like wildfire for people to gossip and theorise about. There were many other things he could say which were almost truths, but they weren’t the full truth.

Rumlow waited for Bucky to break the silence and when it appeared he was not going to, Rumlow broke it instead.

 “Answer the question,” he commanded.

Bucky jolted. That was an order. He always found it difficult to stay quiet when someone expressly told him to speak, a remnant of being brainwashed for so long. It was one of the reasons he’d shared so much in his early therapy sessions whenever Dr Raynor had asked him a direct question, and if he couldn’t resist her, he had no chance of resisting Rumlow.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said finally, “not really. All I know is that it hurts when I think of something bad happening to you.”

Rumlow grinned at this. “So the Winter Soldier remains my staunch protector, huh?” he asked. Bucky tensed at this, but didn’t object.

“You know, I had the biggest crush on you at school,” Rumlow said casually. “Your photos in the text book, the clips at the Smithsonian. You were like my gay awakening. And then I got recruited into Hydra in the 90s and you showed up one day, a relic from the Soviets. The real Bucky Barnes, in the flesh, barely looking a day older than the photographs. I’d have recognised you even if Pierce hadn’t already told us about you. You were just the same, still so young looking, still so damn pretty. And you were mine. It was like a dream come true.” He tapped his fingers against the table.

“I think about you a lot,” he said. “I bet you think about it too. Is that why you came? Because you missed me? Do you want us to continue where we left off?”

Bucky shook his head. “No!” he said, adamantly.

“I don’t believe you,” Rumlow said.

“You know I can’t lie,” Bucky replied.

“I know you can lie to yourself,” Rumlow said, pointing a finger at him. “I know you, Barnes. There isn’t anyone in the world who knows you as well as I do. I know you inside and out. I know your every mannerism, facial expression. I know what you are thinking better than you know it yourself.”

Bucky lowered his eyes again, knowing this was true and hating it.

Rumlow ploughed on.

 “You can tell yourself whatever reassuring lies that help you sleep at night,” he said, “but you’re fooling yourself. I remember you used to gaze at me with those beautiful blues in such adoration. You idolised me.”

Bucky shivered involuntarily, his breath hitched. Rumlow noticed and grinned maliciously. He reached out across the table and took Bucky’s gloveless right hand in his own, and intertwined their fingers. Bucky watched, unmoving, as he did this. He felt like he was floating outside his own body.

“You know Barnes,” Rumlow said softly, stroking his fingers, “I think I still have control over you.”

Bucky shook his head. “No-one does,” he said. “The words got removed. I’m fixed.”

“You see, I don’t think all that just goes away,” Rumlow said, still caressing Bucky’s hand, his eyes fixed on Bucky’s. “All those years where I was in charge and you had to obey me. I’d be willing to bet that that overrides whatever fix-it was done on you. It’s a part of you still, I’m sure.”

The darkness within Bucky thought, remembering the words he’d said to Christina on Friday.

“I blew up a building which collapsed on you,” Bucky reminded him, “I thought I was killing you. You almost died.” And that had been before the trigger words were removed. He’d had the self-will then.

Bucky lowered his gaze to watch Rumlow’s fingers as they danced across his hand. Rumlow let go briefly, to bring his chair around the table so they were sitting close together.

“Yes you did,” Rumlow said, “but just before that you grabbed me, do you remember? And I really thought that was it, I thought you were going to kill me. But then I ordered you to let go. And you did.”

“That wasn’t because you told me to,” Bucky objected, “I let go to press the detonator.” He felt lightheaded as Rumlow continued to stroke his fingers.

“You’re lying to yourself again,” Rumlow whispered. He then took the cigarette from Bucky’s fingers, took a drag on it himself and then dropped it into Bucky’s half empty cup of coffee. He then moved his left hand up to Bucky’s face and cupped his cheek.  Bucky closed his eyes. It was as if the years had melted away, and it was sometime before 2014. He felt himself lean in to the touch.

God, he thought, human contact. Real human contact. He’d been so starved of this as the Winter Soldier that he’d been desperate for it with Rumlow. And the last time he’d had real human contact had been with Sam, who’d turned him down, and humiliated him. With his eyes closed he could almost pretend he wasn’t here with Rumlow, he could pretend that he was here with Sam.

He felt warm breath on his cheek and opened his eyes to find that Rumlow had leaned forward, so close his lips were almost touching his cheek. Rumlow turned Bucky’s face so that they were head on, lips almost touching but not quite. Blue eyes met brown and Bucky held his breath. He felt completely paralysed.

“You know what I heard?” Rumlow asked him, his voice quiet, his scarred face mere centimetres from Bucky’s own. “I heard that rape victims often like to re-enact their rape in order to regain their sense of control. What do you think about that, Barnes?”

Bucky felt paralysed. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t respond. The words pouring out of Rumlow’s mouth filled him with a dread and terror.

“Is that what you think, Barnes?” Rumlow asked, his lips curling up into a cruel smile. “Do you think I raped you? Even though you wanted it? You were desperate for it?”

Bucky felt his eyes sting and he poured every ounce of self-control he had to not let himself cry. He couldn’t cry in front of this man. He wouldn’t. It would be the end.

“I wouldn’t mind doing some re-enactment with you,” Rumlow whispered. Bucky felt his leg tremble and his eyes dropped to look at the other man’s mouth. “And if you don’t stop me,” Rumlow continued, “Is it because you can’t stop me, or because you won’t?”

A small moan escaped Bucky’s lips, and he realised he wanted very much to close the distance between them, to just lean forward just that tiny amount. He closed his eyes again, it would be so easy, and it would feel so right. Almost like coming home. And unlike Sam, Rumlow wouldn’t turn him down, Rumlow wouldn’t stop…

And then the reality of the situation hit him hard like a sledgehammer. The thought of where he was, and who he was with, and what this man had done to him for years and years and years.

“Don’t!” Bucky shouted. He pulled Rumlow’s hand off his cheek and pushed him away from him. Hard. The force caused Rumlow to fall off his chair. Bucky stood up and backed away from the table. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and the breath came out of him in ragged gasps.

“Stay away from me,” he said, “or I’ll kill you.”

Rumlow nodded, still on the floor, his hands raised in the air in surrender. He looked like he was in a lot of pain.

Good Bucky thought viciously. That push had been gentle enough not to break Rumlow’s ribs but it would leave a very painful and large bruise that wouldn’t fade for a long time. He imagined it, red and black and purple and angry spreading out across Rumlow’s torso, a reminder of how close he’d come to being completely destroyed.

Bucky stood over Rumlow, who remained crouching in front of him, and he suddenly felt powerful in a way he’d not felt since entering the apartment. True, he had always been stronger than Rumlow but Rumlow had had the upper hand throughout their entire conversation right up until this very moment. Bucky knew he was in control now. He could see fear flash across Rumlow’s eyes as he stepped forward and the thrill of victory rushed through him at the sight.

“Back in 2015,” Bucky said authoritatively, “you told me you knew about something that happened in 1960. Tell me what you know.”

Rumlow started to rise to his feet, but Bucky shoved him back down to the ground.

“What happened in 1960?” he repeated.

Rumlow grinned, and to Bucky’s horror he no longer appeared afraid. Not only did he grin but then he started to laugh. Then he winced and clutched his ribs as the laugh caused him pain, but he continued regardless.

“That’s why you came here to me!?” Rumlow exclaimed, sounding ecstatic. “You came to me for answers!? I have something you need!”

Bucky couldn’t prevent his upper lip curling up into an almost snarl in response to Rumlow’s obvious joy at the situation, and he stepped forward even closer in what he hoped was a menacing manner.

“Okay, okay,” Rumlow said, flapping his hands at Bucky in a signal to calm down.

“I could tell you that, Soldier,” Rumlow said, after a moment of consideration. “I could be persuaded to tell you.”

Bucky froze. He’d given too much away, he realised. What had he said?

It hurts to think of something bad happening to you

What an idiot he’d been. He’d revealed too much, he should have been more careful. He should have known better.

Rumlow knew Bucky wouldn’t hurt him or kill him. Rumlow knew Bucky had no power over him. Bucky’s bluff had failed. He’d always been bad at poker.

I could be persuaded to tell you

Bucky knew exactly what that meant. It meant giving Rumlow something in return. Killing someone perhaps? Or maybe Rumlow just wanted to sleep with him again.

He’d do neither. He’d do nothing for this man. Not even to get the answers he so desperately craved.

“Forget it,” Bucky said, turning away. He picked up his glove which had fallen to the floor when he’d shoved Rumlow off his chair and pulled it back on.

Rumlow raised himself slowly and awkwardly to his feet, and held his hands over his chest where Bucky had shoved him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, managing to mask the pain in order to continue baiting Bucky. “It’s good…” he said as Bucky turned back to glare at him. “Really really good. You’ll kick yourself for walking away.”

Bucky walked towards the door, and then turned back.

“Don’t ever contact me,” he told Rumlow. “You hear me? I never want to see you or hear from you again.”

“Okay, okay,” Rumlow said, raising his arms once again in surrender. “I promise I won’t contact you.”

As Bucky opened the door and stepped through Rumlow called after him, “I won’t need to contact you, Soldier; after all, you’re the one who came to me. You’ll come back. You won’t be able to resist. You’ll want to know what happened in 1960, and I’m the only person left who knows,” he said the last bit in a sing song voice. Mocking him.

Bucky slammed the door shut hard behind him. He paused for a second to compose himself, taking several deep breaths, and then realised that he needed to leave quickly. He needed to put distance between him and Rumlow, right now. He could feel the start of a panic building within him. He needed to get away. He hurtled himself down the stairs and out the entrance and ran a few streets down, before collapsing against the wall in a small narrow alley between two buildings.  

“Fuck!” he screamed.

Other sounds came out of his mouth, yelling, shouting. There might be people walking past but he didn’t care. Let them stare; let them think he was a madman. He didn’t care. He jerked his head back hard and smashed the wall he was leaning against. He felt the bricks shatter. He did it again. And then again. It hurt. Good.

He then slumped entirely to the ground, buried his head in his hands and moaned. He’d been an idiot. A colossal idiot. What he been thinking? When would he ever learn not to do things like this?

He stayed like that for a long while, huddled on the ground next to smashed pieces of brick, his head buried in his hands.

Eventually Bucky slowly uncurled himself and dug his phone out of his pocket. He’d pulled himself back from the precipice of a panic but he wasn’t out of the woods yet and he was so far from home. This wasn’t something he could manage alone, he needed help.

“Hi Christina,” he said when she answered the phone. He didn’t give himself time to pause, time to change his mind about telling her what had just happened, ploughing on immediately before she could even return his greeting.

“I’ve done something monumentally stupid,” he said.

 

Chapter 21: The Darkness Within: Part Four

Notes:

Warnings for the chapter: discussion of rape, sexual assault, scientific experimentation, torture &c. Nothing is depicted graphically but there’s some detailed discussion. I’m mindful of the M rating and trying not to make anything too descriptive, while still making it obvious what is being talked about.

This chapter also features Bucky doing his usual thing of victim blaming himself and Christina trying to help re-direct his thought processes. Christina almost gets him there. He kind of teeters on the edge but he doesn’t quite make his way over. He’ll get there. Eventually.

The Darkness Within: Part Four

 

 

“I know it was a stupid thing to do,” Bucky said. “Believe me when I tell you I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t do it again.”

From the sceptical look that passed over Christina’s face, Bucky knew that she didn’t believe him in the slightest. He could hardly fault her for her cynicism – his meeting with Rumlow yesterday was just another in a long line of very stupid things he had done over the last few months, and he seemed to be completely incapable of learning from his mistakes.

He’d not yet said very much to Christina about his visit yesterday to Rumlow. He’d rung her straight away and admitted to where he was and what he had just done, but she’d not pushed for any detail over the phone. She’d talked him out of his self-destructive headspace and he’d managed to get himself home without any incident. It was too much to hope that she’d leave it at that and be content not to ask any follow up questions, and so Bucky really wasn’t surprised when he’d turned up to therapy the next day and been confronted with Christina informing him that today’s session had to be focused on what had just happened.

Bucky noticed that Christina looked tired. She had bags under her eyes, and she didn’t appear as well-groomed as she usually did, as though she’d been awake all night and rushed off her feet. This reminded him of when he was in hospital and she’d been on the phone all night trying to convince people that he shouldn’t be locked back up.

“Did you report this back already?” he asked tentatively.

“James,” she said, her tone taking on the air of a very tired and exhausted parent and he actually winced, as if he were a naughty child being told off.

“Yesterday you met with a known former adherent of Hydra,” she continued. “You went alone, and without informing anyone of where you were going and what you were doing. Of course I had to report this back, immediately.”

Bucky shrank back a little, feeling chastened.

“Whatever possessed you to go there?” she asked him. “Your pardon is explicit in saying that you cannot get yourself involved with anyone who has ever been or is currently involved in Hydra or any other terrorist organisations, collusion, acts of vigilantism, former criminals…”

“I know what my pardon says,” Bucky said petulantly.

“And yet you went anyway,” she said. “You can’t keep doing things like this, James. You’re in a very precarious situation and with your history you cannot afford to get yourself accused of any kind of wrong doing.”

Bucky felt his heart beat pick up speed as alarm flooded through him.

“We’ve spoken about this before,” she reminded him, “back when you went to that Hydra base. I told you that you cannot be doing things like this. It’s not good for you in any way – either for your mental well-being or for your freedom.”

“I guess you had to do quite a bit of damage control again?” he asked. “What did they say? Are there going to be consequences for this?”

“That remains to be seen,” she said. “They know we’re meeting today, and they’re reserving judgement depending on what I tell them. You know what this means?”

It was a hypothetical question and Bucky could easily guess the correct answer.

“You have to answer my questions,” she answered for him.

Bucky twisted his hands in his lap and turned his head to look out of the window, avoiding her gaze. This was an all too familiar situation, he mused as he stared out into the carpark – him doing something he shouldn’t and then being browbeaten into talking about it. Sometimes he really loathed Christina. Well, probably not her exactly, but the situations they always found themselves in. After all, she was only doing her job and it’s not like he made things easy for her.

She probably hated being in this situation as much as he did, he realised.

“Why did you go and meet with Brock Rumlow yesterday?” she asked him.

Bucky sighed as his gaze followed a group of birds flying across the cloudless sky. He’d known yesterday that he’d be forced to talk about this, but he’d thought it would be worth it because he’d believed Rumlow would answer his questions – but he’d returned with no answers. He’d failed.

“Rumlow was the one who told me about 1960,” he muttered, still avoiding making eye contact with Christina. “I thought he’d be able to tell me more. That’s why I went.”

He could hear Christina scribbling in her notebook – a forceful reminder that what he was saying would get reported back to her superiors, the White House, the President, whoever else, for them to discuss amongst themselves later, deciding his fate.

“Did he tell you what you wanted to know?” she asked.

Bucky shook his head.

He heard Christina place the notebook on the table.

“James,” she said his name and he looked over towards her.

“I know that this is something you feel is important to you,” she said, “but I think there will be many things that you won’t remember, and many questions that won’t ever be answered and this is something that you need to learn to accept.”

“I don’t like knowing that there are people out there,” Bucky forced out, “who know more about my life than I do. There’s so many gaps and absences and I have no idea what happened… what I did…  where I was...”

“This isn’t about knowing what happened,” Christina said, “this is about you finding more things to feel guilty about. This is about you still trying to punish yourself – putting your freedom at jeopardy, meeting up with someone who’d been part of an organisation which caused you extreme harm. How long were you with him for?”

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, “just about an hour, maybe.”

“An hour?” she asked. “That’s more than asking one question. What else did you talk about?”

“Does it matter?” Bucky asked. “I left. When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer my questions I walked away.”

“Of course it matters,” Christina replied. “Not only to reassure everyone that you’re not at risk of returning to Hydra, but it also matters for you and me – and for the work we’re doing together.”

“We didn’t talk about anything important,” Bucky said.

“Did you talk about Hydra?” she asked.

Bucky licked his lips. That was a direct question and he couldn’t answer ‘no’ to it, and she was far too serious right now to allow him to get away with answering evasively.

“I asked him if he was still communicating with anyone from Hydra,” Bucky told her. “He said he wasn’t.”

“Anything else about Hydra?” she pressed, retrieving her notebook and scribbling some more in it.

Bucky shook his head and stared down at the floor, he could feel his heart pounding inside his chest.

“Let me tell you what is likely to happen if you continue not to talk to me about this,” she said. “I will have to report back that you are hiding something about your visit to a known former Hydra follower. They will make inferences about this. They will suspect you of collusion, of being in cahoots with Hydra again; they will want to question you.”

Bucky looked up at her, his eyes glaring daggers into her own.

“This isn’t fun for me James,” she said, “I don’t want to be threating you, but you have to know what the potential consequences might be. I don’t like being in this position, it’s hardly going to help our therapeutic relationship but I’m sure you’d far rather have me asking you these questions than anyone else.”

She was right, of course.

 “Look,” Bucky said, trying to sound reasonable, trying to keep the anger he was feeling from exploding out of him. “Its fine, I promise. There’s nothing else I need to tell you.”

He could tell from the look on her face that he’d not managed to convince her. And, even worse, he’d not even managed to convince himself because no sooner had he spoken the lie he could feel the tell-tale signs of a dull ache beginning to pulse behind his eyes.  If he didn’t correct the lie, it would just get worse, the dull ache would turn into a stabbing pain, and he would end up with his entire head being in agony.

He swore, loudly and furiously, and it made her jump in her chair in surprise.

“I can’t have anything to myself can I?” he proclaimed angrily. “Not one thing. Every little thing I do or say, everywhere I go, people who I talk to; it all gets questioned and shared, and dissected. Isn’t it enough for me to tell you that I’m not colluding with him; I’m not returning to Hydra, I’m not a risk to anyone? Why can’t that be enough?”

“You know why,” she said calmly. “This isn’t something minor, James, which can be overlooked or glossed over. This is serious.”

Bucky waved a hand impatiently.

“Look, he was just being a dick,” he said crudely. “He just said a lot of really shit things about me, about the past, about what I used to like. Horrible things. That’s all.”

He took a deep shaky breath; this was starting to make him feel emotional. He’d not realised how much Rumlow’s words had affected him until now. It had hurt.

“It’s one thing to be cruel,” he mumbled, “it’s another thing to revel in it.”

Then, louder he said: “I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t meet with him again. Or anyone else. There is no-one else.”

“You put yourself at incredible risk going to see that man,” Christina told him.

“I know I did,” Bucky quickly agreed, and he was relieved to notice that the impending headache had now dissipated.

There was silence between them as Christina considered her notes.

Bucky let his mind wander as the silence lingered on. What Christina had said about the potential repercussions of his actions did genuinely worry him. The last thing he wanted, after all this time away from Hydra, was to be accused of willingly going back, of getting drawn back in. He remembered how terrified he’d been at the prospect of being confined in a mental institution – his most recent actions could result in him being returned to the Raft. He felt a cold chill run down his spine at the thought.

He had to be more open with Christina, he realised; whatever she asked, he would have to answer these questions. She was right, far better it be her than someone faceless government official just looking for an excuse to lock him back up. Or, even worse, what if they brought Rumlow in for questioning and he told them everything?

He mustn’t let that happen.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Bucky asked Christina. “To Rumlow, I mean?”

Christina blinked at him in surprise.

“Why is this even a consideration for you?” she asked. “What does it matter to you what happens to him?”

Bucky winced, realising he’d slipped up and now likely just made things worse for himself.

“It’s not that I care,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, “it’s just… he went to prison, he’s on house arrest, and he’s received his punishment for everything he’s done in the past. He’s not with Hydra anymore. I just showed up at his home. He was an arsehole yesterday, but he didn’t do anything wrong…”

He trailed off at the look Christina was giving him. She was gazing at him with a critical and thoughtful expression on her face and this was making him uneasy. Christina was too astute, and he was saying too much. She was right, he shouldn’t care about whatever might happen to Rumlow, and here he was clearly caring and trying to make excuses for him.

“This clearly matters a great deal to you,” Christina observed. She made a show of closing the notebook and placing it, and the pen, in a drawer. “Tell me, what exactly was this man’s involvement with you back in Hydra?”

Bucky tried to keep his facial expression blank, to not let her see how much alarm this seemingly innocuous question evoked in him.

“I reported to him sometimes,” Bucky responded truthfully. “He operated as my handler quite frequently. Alexander Pierce was in charge overall, but he didn’t get involved with me directly very much. He delegated.”

Pierce’s interactions with him had been rare and generally unpleasant. He was only ever brought in when something had gone wrong – when the Soldier had made a mistake of some kind, or when he wasn’t functioning properly. Pierce had slapped him once, Bucky remembered. Maybe more than once.

“So this man who you willingly met with yesterday, he used to give you orders?” Christina clarified. “He would give you targets – the victims – sending you off to kill people.”

For some reason Bucky felt compelled to defend Rumlow.

“Well yes,” he said, “but he was following his own orders. If not, he’d have faced serious consequences too.”

“What about the torture?” she asked. “The electric shocks? The Chair? The memory wipes? The drugging and being cryogenically frozen? – was he complicit with these too?”

Bucky wilted slightly from the questioning.

“Not really,” he hedged, “that was mainly the scientists or the doctors.”

“He was there?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” Bucky said evasively.

“So let me get this straight,” Christina said, suddenly all business-like and efficient. “This man was part of inflicting all this harm against you, was part of you being stripped of your free will and human rights, was complicit in the murders that Hydra committed through you and your chief concern with me right now is that you don’t want him to get into trouble because you showed up at his home yesterday.”

Bucky shrank even further into the sofa, feeling like a naughty child being told off.

“Yes, he served time in prison,” Christina said, “but not for any of the crimes committed against you. How could he have? No-one knew about them until now. You often talk about justice – do you feel he has received justice for the crimes he committed against you, and the people he instructed you to kill?”

These weren’t fair questions, Bucky thought desperately, and he hadn’t the first idea how to answer them. Of course he wanted all his victims to get the justice they deserved, but they should get that through him not through Rumlow.

“I just…” Bucky fumbled with his words, completely incapable of getting out a coherent sentence.

“I’m not trying to…” he started and stopped again. “I don’t…”

Christina tapped her fingers on the arm of her Chair as she continued to appraise him thoughtfully.

“I feel like I’m missing something here,” she said slowly. “I know when you’re being evasive, and there’s something you’re not telling me and that worries me.”

Stricken, Bucky shook his head forcefully. She was getting close, too close, worryingly close to discovering things Bucky never wanted to share with anyone.

“What else did you speak to this man about when you saw him yesterday?” she asked again.

Bucky felt his fists clench, and his jaw tightened as she continued to push.

“James,” she prompted him.

“Oh my God!” Bucky burst out, once again releasing his anger and frustration. “Can’t you leave it be? I’m not colluding with him. He’s not Hydra anymore, I’m not Hydra. He’s safe, I’m safe. Why can’t that be enough? Why do you always have to push and push and push?”

He was losing control, he realised, as words just continued to pour out of him and he couldn’t stop them now.

“There are some things that I just really don’t need to talk about,” Bucky continued in the same forceful and frustrated tone. “There are things that don’t need to be said, and it doesn’t mean I’m keeping secrets or posing a risk. I just want to keep certain things to myself, okay? It was bad enough you making me talk about Siberia and Fennhoff but at least you lot already knew about that…”

He cut himself off too late, slamming his gloved right hand over his mouth to stop the endless spew of words from giving away too much, but he knew he’d unleashed too much. He could practically see the cogs turning in Christina’s brain as she mentally linked together Siberia and Fennhoff with Rumlow, and pieced it together with his defensiveness, his evasiveness and his stubborn determination to exonerate the other man.

“James,” she said, and the way she said his name this time made him shudder, her tone had changed from that for being a sharp parent, to something more smooth and gentle and it signalled to him that she had made the link, that she knew exactly what it was he was keeping from her. He closed his eyes.

“I need to ask you this directly,” she said, “because I don’t want to jump to the wrong conclusions or put words into your mouth… what exactly was the nature of your relationship with this man?”

Bucky flinched.

“James…” she pressed.

Bucky’s eyes flashed open in anger.

“Yes all-right!” he exclaimed viciously, raising his arms in his frustration. “Fine! You got me! He fucked me, okay? Several times. Over twenty years. Are you happy now?”

He felt his brain white out after this outburst, completely stunned by the admission that had just flowed out of him. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and there was nothing inside his head other than a light buzzing.

“I’m not happy in the slightest,” Christina replied.

Bucky rested his forehead on his left hand and took several deep shuddering breaths in an attempt to get his brain working again. The buzzing in his head was starting to turn into screaming, and he could feel his right leg shaking.

Something got shoved into his right hand and he opened his eyes to see that Christina had passed him a plastic beaker of water.

Plastic he noted dimly, remembering how he’d smashed a glass one the last time he’d freaked out in therapy.

“Let me tell you how I’m feeling right now,” Christina said as he automatically raised the cup to his lips to take a small sip.

“I’m feeling very calm,” Christina said. “I’m not feeling any strong emotion. I’m not feeling outraged, or repulsed or judgemental. No shame. I’m just here, and I’m listening.”

Her words had the positive effect of calming him down, once he’d absorbed her lack of condemnation and horror. He started to feel like he was coming back to himself again. And now this horrifying secret was out in the open, suddenly he couldn’t stop even more from coming out. It was like the little trickle of water that leads to a damn bursting open.

“He said such horrible things,” Bucky said, using the plastic beaker as a way to avoid meeting Christina’s eyes. “He mocked me. Said he wanted to re-enact… things…  with me, said something about ‘picking up where we left off’. He thought it was funny.”

He suddenly felt exhausted. He put the cup down. He was still avoiding Christina’s eyes.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” he requested quietly, his eyes now glued to the table. “I can’t bear the thought of everyone knowing…”

“Okay,” Christina agreed immediately.

Bucky chanced a glance up at her, she seemed genuine, and she wasn’t writing in her damn notebook. Maybe she meant it, like when she’d said she wouldn’t report back about the time he’d kissed Sam. He started to feel a bit calmer.

“Do you have feelings for this man?” Christina asked him carefully.

Bucky felt his eyes sting.

“No,” he said, “no, I don’t. I never did. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t my choice.”

“No,” Christina agreed, “it wasn’t.”

Bucky looked across at her uncertainly, still anxious about the trajectory of this conversation.

“I understand why you’ve not mentioned this before,” Christina said, “and I’m not upset or annoyed with you for keeping this from me. I wonder if you could tell me if there’s been other people like Rumlow?”

“Well, you already know about Fennhoff and Grigorij,” Bucky said. He hesitated for a moment, lingering on the idea of not sharing any more, but what would be the point of keeping these things secret any longer? It was all out now, might as well carry on.

“There was one guy, this General, he liked to punish me,” Bucky said, “show me who was in charge, you know? When I was non-compliant. Only a couple of times though.”

“Anyone else?” she asked neutrally, not pushing for any more information than he was willing to give.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not that I can remember, anyway. I think that’s it. Although…”

Something suddenly crossed his mind, but he wasn’t sure about whether he should mention it.

“I’m not sure if it counts…” he said dubiously.

“Perhaps you could tell me what happened?” Christina suggested, “and we can work that out together?”

 Bucky screwed up his face, trying to work out how to talk about this.

 “There were…” he began.

He thought about it. He couldn’t say it outright, he realised. He would have to approach this from a different angle.

“Back in the 90s,” he started, and yes this was easier, talking around what had happened rather than diving straight into it. “They were trying to create serum to make more super-soldiers. But it always went wrong.”

His mind flashed back to the five super-soldiers that Zemo had killed in Siberia.

“There came a point where they stopped trying to make serum, they realised it wasn’t going to work,” he continued.

 

How did it work with the Soldier? he remembered Karpov angrily asking someone, Why did it go wrong with the others?

The answer the over man had given: The Soldier was a blank slate. Not something that can be easily replicated with anyone else and there is no-one left who knows how they did it.

 

“So they thought they’d try to create super-soldiers the old-fashioned way,” Bucky said quickly, trying to get the words out as fast as possible before he thought too hard about what he was saying. “You know, home grown, breeding them, raising them to be exactly what was needed. So they took what they needed for that… from me.”

He cringed as all the embarrassment and humiliation from that time rushed through him. He’d allowed them to use his body as they saw fit in order to take whatever it was they needed. So docile, so obedient, so willing.

So pathetic.

“It never worked,” Bucky said quickly, reassuring her, or perhaps himself. “From what the scientists were saying at the time I’m pretty certain the serum’s rendered me sterile.”

“I see,” Christina said slowly.

Then:

“Yes James,” she said, “that counts. Not only is that sexual assault but it’s also taking away your reproductive autonomy.”

Hearing her say this so plainly made him wince again, and he felt his face flare up.

“You feel ashamed about this,” Christina said, noting his obvious embarrassment.

“Of course I feel fucking ashamed!” he burst out, furiously. “The things I let that man do to me!” he exclaimed, thinking of Rumlow. “The things I let all of them do to me.”

He looked out the window again, and he could see his own faint reflection in the glass.

“Why did I do nothing?” he asked as he looked into his own eyes. “Why did I always do nothing?”

“These men,” Christina told him, “they did these things to you. You didn’t let anything happen. You’re taking responsibility again for the actions of others. We’ve spoken about this. I know it’s a difficult thing to accept.”

Bucky shrugged, completely unconvinced.

“It’s common,” she explained, “for men to feel ashamed when they have been abused. We’ve touched on this before. Not only that,” she continued, “it’s also the case that many men experience a physical response to sexual abuse, taking pleasure from it…”

“Oh my God!” Bucky interrupted suddenly, “I can’t talk about this. Not this. Not with you. I can’t.”

“I just want you to hear, James,” she said, “that taking any pleasure from it doesn’t make it any less assault or rape.”

Bucky could tell that his face was flaming red now. He’d didn’t think there’d ever been a time in his entire life when he’d ever felt more awkward or embarrassed. He buried his face in his hands in a rather futile attempt to hide the evidence of his mortification.

“That’s what Rumlow said,” he told her quietly. “He said I wanted it. And he used that word.”

“Which word?” she asked.

Bucky shrank even further into the sofa, trying to make himself as small as possible.

“He said all this shit about how people re-enact things when they’ve been raped,” he said, “and it suddenly hit me then that that’s what happened. That that’s what it all was, wasn’t it?”

He flung his hands down and stared at her imploringly. “I hadn’t realised. All that talking that you and I have done about all that shit that Fennhoff did, and I just never really properly understood what it meant. That I was…” he took a deep breath, and rested his forehead against his hand. This was a hard word to say. This was a hard thing to admit out loud. “That I was raped,” he said finally.

“That’s true,” Christina said, filling the silence that followed.

“I think I knew it on some level, really,” Bucky continued. “I had to have done. But it just really hit me in that moment with him, when he said that. And it just made me so angry you know. And I’m still really angry.”

“What are you angry about?” she asked him.

“Because…” Bucky said desperately, “because look at me. How can that have happened to me? I’m so strong. Rape doesn’t happen to people like me. Can you imagine Steve letting anything like that happen to him?”

He remembered the words of Colonel Phillips, over 80 years ago now:

 

Here you are, a brilliant soldier, strong, smart and competent and yet at the same time you’re so weak

 

“I’m so weak,” he said blankly. “Steve was always so strong, even when he was physically weak. He was strong on the inside. But I’ve always been the opposite. Strong outside, but weak inside. It’s how I ended up… like this…”

He voice broke, and he angrily grabbed tissues off the table in front of him and wiped at his eyes. He was so sick of crying. He was so sick of constant reminders of how pathetic he was.

Christina was talking and he tried to force himself to listen. She was talking about male victims of violence. About the stigma they can face, particularly those who have been subjected to sexual violence. And how this can lead to self-hatred, self-blame and also denial. This was important, he knew, but he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering away, replaying over and over the things he had just told Christina. His brain was screaming at him, how could he have spoken aloud about these things?  He felt like he was trapped inside a horrible dream, and now he needed to wake up and realise that this hadn’t actually happened. That he hadn’t just admitted all this to Christina.

“James?” Christina’s voice pushed through his musings. “What’s on your mind?” she asked him.

Bucky blinked at her, and tried to recall what she was talking about. Blame, guilt, shame… her usual buzz words.

“I know what you’re saying,” he told her, “that I didn’t let these things happen. But they did happen. Repeatedly. And I think maybe more times than I can remember, more people than I can remember. And I couldn’t stop it from happening.”

Bucky looked out of the window again, taking in the glorious summer sunshine. It was too much a bright and pleasant day to be talking about these things. This conversation was better suited to rain, dark clouds, and stormy weather.

“James,” Christina said, “you are making some very important realisations right now. You’ve accepted that this man, along with others, has hurt and raped you. But you are still using such victim blaming language against yourself. It’s shame again. Shame doesn’t allow us to see things as they really are. People chose to do horrific things to you and none of us can be held responsible for the choices that other people make.”

Bucky thought back to those early Hydra years in Siberia. When he tried again and again to stop the things Fennhoff and Zola were doing, only to fail. Again and again.

“I let people do horrific things to me,” Bucky said, “because I failed to stop them. And I carried out their orders because I was too weak to do otherwise.”

“That’s what you tell yourself to torture yourself,” Christina said, ”to erroneously make yourself believe that you had agency when all agency was stripped from you. You do this because it’s easier to believe that rather than what really happened, so you feel worthy of the punishment you so often inflict upon yourself.”

Bucky sighed and shook his head. If he wasn’t feeling so shaky and vulnerable he might have rolled his eyes.

“I want you to tell me what really happened,” Christina instructed.

“That is what really happened,” he persisted stubbornly.

“Shall I tell you what happened?” she asked him softly, her voice the epitome of calmness, placid and completely devoid of any powerful emotion.

Bucky froze, staring at her wide-eyed and suddenly feeling terrified for reasons he couldn’t even begin to explain. She was asking permission, but he couldn’t answer her. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it was a nod nonetheless, which she noticed and took as authorisation for her to continue.

“James, you were horrendously abused for seventy years,” Christina said, laying it out to him plainly and simply. It was a statement of fact, not up for dispute.

“Don’t,” Bucky interrupted her, wiping a hand across his brow and then resting it on his forehead.

“Don’t make me out to be a victim,” he said. “I’m not the victim here.”

“That’s not the word I used,” she pointed out, “but you are a survivor.”

“Don’t!” this time he snapped the word, irritated, that once again he was being compelled to see things in a way that he did not agree with. He would not feel sorry for himself. He couldn’t.

 “Then you tell me what really happened,” Christina instructed, still in her calm, quiet tone.

“I know what my life’s been,” Bucky cut across her, furiously. He remembered saying to Sam once:

 

 I know what happened to me, Sam. I spent seventy years not being able to remember anything and now I can’t forget.

 

“Then tell me what really happened,” Christina said again.

“I know!” and these two words burst out of him loudly, aggressively, fuelled by his rage and fury. Raging at her for pushing him, fury at himself for constantly doing things wrong and ending up in this situation; and there was anger there too, at Hydra and at the people who’d created this life for him that he’d ended up living for so long.

His fists clenched, and his whole body shook as he took a moment to calm himself down. His next words were shaky, but quieter and calmer.

“I know what happened,” he said. “I know what they did. It happened to me. I know it. I lived it. I know it all.”

“Then tell me what you know,” Christina said. “Tell me what you lived through.”

Bucky blinked away rogue tears that were threatening to fall and looked down at the ground in the hope that she hadn’t noticed. His hand automatically reached for the dog tags around his neck which he idly fiddled with as he built up the mental fortitude to continue.

“I know that they controlled my mind and body with words,” he said to the floor, “and through me they committed acts of unspeakable evil. And I murdered hundreds of people in order to serve Hydra’s agenda. I couldn’t escape or leave because they took away my memories, my morals, my sense of right and wrong, and made it so I could never recover them. And because of what they did I hurt people, I killed people.”

He took a breath, pausing in order to build up the strength it would take to say the next words:

“And yes,” he said. “They hurt me too. In all manner of ways.”

Silence followed this. It hung in the air between them allowing his own words to sink in and take root. He’d never before spoken about what had happened to him in such a manner – accepting of Hydra’s culpability without assigning blame to himself.

“That’s what really happened,” he finished.

She nodded.

“Tell me how they hurt you,” she said. Again it wasn’t a question, it was an instruction.

“You know what they did,” Bucky replied.

“I do know,” she said. “But you’re the one who needs to say it. Right now. Tell me what did those men in Hydra do to you? What did Fennhoff do? Zola? Lukin? Rumlow? And anyone else; all those people who you haven’t told me about yet, either because you can’t remember or because you’re still keeping things from me. What did they do to you?”

Bucky swallowed. Saying these things out loud was painful, and difficult, and it was a job trying to keep himself together, to prevent himself from turning into a shaking, sobbing mess.

“They tortured me,” he tentatively suggested, looking up at her briefly for her reaction, almost as if he was afraid of getting the answer wrong.

“How?” she asked.

He shook his head and let out a puff of air, where to even begin?

“They burned me,” he said, “starved me, beat, me, bled me, raped me, electrocuted me…” he choked and he found himself unable to continue.

“It’s quite a list,” Christina remarked. “And there’s more isn’t there?”

Bucky nodded, his eyes fixed on hers.

“They tore me to pieces,” he said in barely more than a whisper, “and they built the Winter Soldier from my broken remains.”

“If I told you that all these things had happened to someone else, what would you say to them?” Christina asked. “Would you feel that they should feel to blame for what happened?”

 I’d feel sorry for them he thought I’d tell them it wasn’t their fault, that they did their best. I’d want them to feel better, to hear that they didn’t deserve all the bad things that happened to them. That no-one deserves this, not even the worst of people. I’d want to tell them that it gets better, that everything’s going to be okay.

He’d be kind to them in a way he could never be kind to himself.

 

Be kind to your past self, Christina had said once.

 

And there was what Steve used to say:

 

It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault.

 

Bucky knew what had happened to him.

But why had it happened?

He knew what she wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to repeat the words she had said, and to believe them. She believed that he was on the precipice of this great revelation:

I am not responsible for the things they chose to do to me, and for the things they made me do

It wasn’t my choice

It wasn’t my fault

 

Those thoughts flickered through his mind and it made his skin crawl to think them.

“I know what you want me to say Christina,” he said, “but I can’t say it because I don’t believe it. Because I keep coming back to those early years in Siberia and all the things I did wrong. Hell, I was only even there in the first place because I fucked everything up. I failed to kill myself in Krausberg. I let Phillips and Carter blackmail me. I didn’t trust Steve. I lied to Steve. And I fell off that damn train because I was trying to play the hero. And then in Siberia I just gave up and gave in because my mind and my body were so fucking weak and I couldn’t do anything to stop them.”

“James,” Christina interrupted him, her voice sounded tired, defeated. Bucky hung his head, feeling ashamed, feeling once again like a failure for letting her down and not getting to the place she wanted him to get to.

“I know what everyone wants me to believe,” he said. “I know what you all want me to say. But I can’t.” He didn’t make any effort this time to stop the tears from forming, letting them build up until they began to overflow and trickle down his face.

Yes bad things had happened to him. He’d been tortured, abused and raped over the course of 70 years. He had suffered. He was still suffering from it now. But it was nothing compared to the suffering he himself had inflicted upon others.

He thought of Yori Nakajima. An old man facing the rest of his life alone and unsupported, in grief and poverty, with all those unanswered questions, because Bucky had murdered his son. A smart young man with a bright future ahead of him, who cared for his father and who would have looked after him in his old age. And Bucky had taken that away from them.

He thought about Elizabeth Dugan, and her brother. Those two children who had cowered in fear as he’d butchered their grandfather and family friend in front of them. He’d held a knife to her throat as she had whimpered and cried and wet herself. She’d been 12 years old. Her brother had been even younger. She’d spent years in therapy because of him and now she had to see him free as a bird, unpunished for the nightmare and horror he’d exposed her to, without knowing the reasons why.

He thought of Howard; Howard who had been his closest friend and confidant during the war, who had saved his life and gave him a reason to carry on when every moment was misery and weariness. Howard, who he had battered to death in front of his injured wife who he then strangled.

He thought about all the other murders he had committed. Names and places and dates and last words over and over again, playing out in his mind. A never ending line of death, devastation and destruction, all committed by him. His own hands, his own body, and his own mind had prepared, planned and executed mission after mission and person after person. And all because he had made all the wrong choices which had led him first to Krausberg and then to Siberia, and because of all the times he had failed to kill himself when he still had enough of his own mind to do so. How could this be anyone’s fault other than his own?

And he wished he could apologise, make amends, provide restitution to those he had caused such harm to. He wished he could give them closure, bring them justice and tell them how sorry he was.

 

No-one else could have been the Winter Soldier

 

He’d said those exact words to Christina. The Winter Soldier could only have existed because of him. It was all because of him – his mind, his lived experience, his poor choices and his weaknesses, twisted and turned into the mindless murderer that had always lain beneath the surface of Bucky Barnes. The darkness within.

“I cannot absolve myself of the responsibility,” he said softly, “for all the horror, pain and death I have caused.” He looked back out of the window, and stared out into the bright sunlight. It was so beautiful. And he didn’t deserve to be here to see it, free and unpunished, when the ghosts of so many dead hung around him, unavenged. He thought of the families of the dead cheated of justice and closure, never to get the answers they so desperately craved. 

“I don’t have the right,” he finished.

 

Notes:

End note Bucky says in this chapter ‘they tore me to pieces and built the Winter Soldier from my broken remains’. I wish I could take the credit for this wonderful line, but I read it in an article which was quoting a writer / director of one of the Captain America films ‘they tore him to pieces and built the Winter Soldier from his broken remains’. I can’t reference it properly as I have no idea where I read it but this line really resonated with me, and it was something that I had to use. If you know where this quote is from please let me know.

Chapter 22: Revelations: Part One

Revelations: Part One

 

Something Bucky liked about Christina – well, liked might be the wrong word – something he appreciated about her was that she knew when to push and when to let things lie. She’d told him once, early on in their sessions together, that part of her job was to challenge him. And she did challenge him, sometimes forcefully, almost aggressively; and other times more gently, in order to coax him down paths and explore things he’d never thought he’d talk about with anyone. And while she could drive him almost crazy with her pushing and her ‘dog-with-a-bone’ curiosity sometimes, she could always tell when it was time to step back, to change direction, and to move on to a different topic.

And that was a relief, because this morning’s session had been particularly rough, talking about Rumlow and being pushed by her to detail all the abuse he’d been subjected to over seven decades.  After realising that Bucky’s mind-set was not in the place to continue on, Christina had stopped pushing and changed the subject entirely.

She then sent him home, alone thank God – having determined that he was past the need for babysitters - with the understanding that someone would randomly check on him in the evenings and first thing in the mornings to make sure he’d not gone off somewhere. In the meantime she would spend the rest of the day on the telephone trying to reassure those above her that he was not colluding with former Hydra members and that there was nothing to worry about.

So Bucky had returned home just after midday, feeling drained and completely exhausted, and collapsed in front of the television his mind replaying over and over again everything he’d said in therapy that morning.

“So fucking stupid,” he muttered to himself, and he hit himself hard on the forehead.

“What were you thinking!?” he griped out loud.

He cringed when he replayed over in his mind the things he’d told Christina about his relationship with Rumlow and what the scientists had done to him. Could he really trust that she wouldn’t pass those things on? Was she, even now, relaying back every word he’d just said, sharing his private humiliation to become the topic of discussion and mockery?

He buried his head in his hands and moaned. God, he really hated himself sometimes. He kept putting himself in these situations, again and again – when would he ever learn to make sensible decisions?

And speaking of making sensible decisions…

Bucky pulled out his phone and navigated to his conversations with Yori. He’d agreed with Yori to have lunch with him again this week, tomorrow actually. He ought to cancel. That would be a sensible decision. He should cancel and vanish from Yori’s life forever. He should block Yori’s number, and then come clean to Christina about it on Wednesday during his next therapy session.

His finger hovered over his phone, ready to type out some excuse as to why tomorrow wouldn’t work for him, but he couldn’t actually do it. He thought about Yori trying to call him, and sending him messages that he’d never get a response to. It felt too cruel to just vanish without any explanation, but what else could he do?

He clenched the phone tightly in his fist, taking care not to break it, and agonised for quite a while about what the best course of action would be.

He wished there was someone he could talk to about all this. Someone who wasn’t Christina. Someone who was a friend and who could give him advice as a friend.

Sam.

He wished he could call Sam. Sam would give good advice, Bucky was certain of it. Sam would know what to do; he would know how to fix this mess that Bucky had managed to get himself into.  But he couldn’t ring Sam. Sam hadn’t tried to contact him even once since Bucky had shouted down the phone at him.

Stop calling me!  Bucky remembered yelling, and Sam had obliged.

How could he now call Sam up and ask for advice after all this time? He couldn’t. He couldn’t even begin to think how he would manage that conversation, and chances were high that Sam wouldn’t even answer the phone.

And there was no-one else.

He continued to stare blankly at the television as the realisation of just how alone he was really began to set in.

 

He met with Yori the next day as planned, against his better judgement as he’d been completely unable to figure out any way to avoid this meeting. He’d stopped off to buy Yori a newspaper on the way and Yori’s face lit up with delight when Bucky presented it to him.

It was a pleasant enough lunch. Bucky avoided eating, but he did take the opportunity to drink that incredibly strong alcohol again. Yori read out some obituaries, updated him on his annoying neighbour, and told interesting stories from his childhood in Japan. He asked Bucky some questions about himself and his own family which Bucky answered truthfully, if a little evasively, telling Yori that he had three sisters and that his parents had both passed away ‘a long time ago’.

And then Yori suddenly stopped talking, mid-sentence, and his eyes took on a glazed, far-away look. Bucky blinked in astonishment and followed Yori’s gaze to see that his eyes were fixed on a plate of sushi over at the next table. But it didn’t seem like Yori was really looking at it.

Bucky looked back over at Yori and realised with a sudden jolt that Yori was doing what he himself so often did – disassociating. He wasn’t really there – his body was, but his mind was elsewhere.

Bucky gently stroked Yori’s arm and said his name, and watched as Yori seemed to snap back into himself. Yori appeared confused, as if he’d forgotten where he was and who he was with, and took a moment to regain his bearings.

Yori then gestured over at the food which had caught his attention.

“My son…” he began, and Bucky felt himself shrink back slightly in his chair, his eyes immediately dropping to avoid making contact with Yori’s own. “That was his favourite…”

He looked over at Bucky, his face a picture of grief and loss, looking so old, so small and just so incredibly sad that Bucky couldn’t prevent the rush of guilt, remorse and pity that flooded through him. It had been over twenty years since the man’s son had been killed, twenty years, but the grief was still so real, so raw, so present, even after all this time.

And of course it would be. This had been his son. His only child.

There’s not much worse that could happen to a person than losing a child.

“I’m so sorry, Yori,” Bucky said, unable to stop himself, “I…”

He faltered as Yori looked over at him questioningly and Bucky suddenly realised that he was at great risk of revealing all to Yori right here and now, and that would be catastrophic.

Not like this he told himself. You can’t.

He stumbled over his words as he continued.

“Such a horrible thing to happen,” he amended. “I can’t even begin to…”

“I think I want to go home now,” Yori said, his jovial mood completely gone now, his mind clearly focused on thoughts about his son.

Bucky nodded, paid for the food and they both went their separate ways. Bucky was half-way home, deep in thoughts about Yori and his son, when a sudden realisation crossed his mind and brought him to an immediate halt.

He had to tell Yori the truth about the death of his son.

I will never know what happened to him, Yori had said, the first time they’d met and Bucky had seen the shrine to the son he’d murdered.

Wrong place at the wrong time, they said

Yori wanted answers, answers only Bucky could give him. This was something he had to do.

Before Bucky could even begin to consider whether this was a good idea, without any further thought about what he might say and how he would say it, he spun on his heel and strode back with purpose towards Yori’s apartment building.

It wasn’t until he’d already knocked at Yori’s door that he suddenly realised with a panic that he wasn’t prepared for this. He’d set his mind to a task and started to follow it through without the first idea about how to do so.

He had to leave, and quickly, before Yori opened the door. He could hear Yori moving around inside his apartment and knew he had only moments before Yori would open wide the door and see him, and he didn’t know what to say. He had no reason to give for being here. This was an absolute nightmare.

Bucky found that he couldn’t move; his feet rooted to the spot even though his brain was shouting at him to leave, and to leave now.  And then the door opened and it was too late.

“James?” Yori asked, squinting at him in confused surprise. “Is something wrong?”

Bucky could only stare at him helplessly, unable to move, unable to even speak. He mouthed wordlessly at Yori, who frowned at him, now clearly concerned for his well-being.

“You should come in,” Yori said and opened the door wider to allow access.

The shrine was noticeable from the entrance; Bucky wondered how it had taken him so long to see it the last time he was here. As the door swung wide open Bucky found his eyes seeking out the photograph of the young man he had murdered, as the familiar buzzing started to build up inside his head.

I didn’t see anything

Please

“What is it?” Yori asked, turning to see what it was that had Bucky so transfixed.

“Uh…” Bucky tried desperately to quell the noises in his head, tried to pull together something coherent to say to Yori.

All thoughts of telling Yori the truth had gone. He knew beyond any doubt that he was not capable of doing this. He also knew that he could not step one foot into that apartment without freaking out in a big way. He needed to get away before he made this situation much much worse.

He fumbled for his wallet.

“I owe you,” he said, “for lunch.”

Yori’s gaze took on an even more concerned look, if that was possible.

“You paid for lunch,” Yori reminded him.

“Oh,” Bucky said, turning the wallet over and over in his hands. “Of course. I uh… I forgot.”

He stepped back to leave, began to turn, then stopped and turned back to face Yori.

“I’m sorry…” he said quickly, his voice cracking from his shame and the effort of holding back the emotions threatening to burst out of him, “I don’t know what came over me… I…”

He shook his head forcefully; this wasn’t helping. This was making things worse. He cut himself off and walked away, forcing himself to walk rather than run, when all he wanted to do was to get as far away from here as possible.

“James!” he heard Yori call after him, but he quickly turned into the stairwell and then picked up the pace so that Yori couldn’t follow him.

Well, that was a complete and unmitigated disaster, Bucky thought as he made his way home. This is what happens when you don’t think things through. This is how you make bad decisions.

Ever since he was a child Bucky had always been an act now, think things through later kind of person. Once he got an idea in his head, it had to be acted upon straight away and he didn’t always think it through very well. You’d have thought that after all this time he’d have figured out that operating this way generally didn’t work out very well for him.

He was trying to help Yori, but he was just making things worse. What was that saying about good intentions?

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The only thing he’d managed to accomplish was to cause Yori confusion and worry.  

The problem was, he realised as he reached his apartment building and began to walk up the stairs to his floor, was that he didn’t know how to properly give Yori the answers he would want. Yori wanted to know what happened to his son and why. He wanted closure – that word again – possibly he would want justice, to know that the people responsible received appropriate punishment.

What could he possibly tell the man?

I killed your son but it wasn’t really me

It sounded ridiculous.

And if he himself wasn’t responsible then who was? Rumlow? Pierce? One of the others?

Names played out in his mind as he entered his apartment.

Perhaps he had to go even further back in time to find the culprit, he mused, as he paced round and round his living area. Further back to the people who’d made him the Winter Soldier in the first place – Lukin, Zola, Fennhoff. How far back could he go when playing the blame game? If he wanted to give Yori answers, how much would he need to share with Yori to help him properly understand the context surrounding his son’s death?

He couldn’t shake the feeling that it would just sound like he was making excuses for himself, abdicating responsibility, passing the blame on to someone else.

And even if he did, how would that even help? To tell Yori that all those responsible for the death of his son were never properly punished for it? To tell Yori that there would never be justice for what had happened?

Rumlow still lived, a relatively free man. Bucky himself was free and unpunished. Alexander Pierce was killed, yes, but he never got punished. The man got offered a Nobel Peace Prize! Not exactly someone who ever got their come-uppance.

Zola had lived a long and happy life before succumbing to cancer sometime in the late 70s. And even after death his consciousness had lingered on because he’d somehow managed to upload his brain into a computer. He’d never received punishment for any of his crimes. He’d been recruited into SHIELD, working alongside Peggy Carter and Howard Stark and lived a life he’d not deserved.

Lukin? God knows what had happened to him. It probably hadn’t even been his real name. He’d remained in Siberia until 1959 before moving on to pastures new.

Then that left Fennhoff…

What did he know about Fennhoff?

He’d come from SHIELD custody, Bucky remembered Zola telling him this, although it was still known as the SSR back then. Zola had returned to SHIELD in 1945, in order to build up Hydra secretly from within, and Fennhoff left a couple of years later. Left to go where?

He was typing Fennhoff’s name into his phone before he could even stop himself, quickly selecting the first search result which led to a Wikipedia page.

The man had an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to him. Bucky quickly bypassed the photograph at the top of the page and instead focused on the text.

He scrolled through it, learning that Fennhoff, like Zola, had been recruited by SHIELD. He’d been married, had children and had died in his 90s. He’d published articles and journals, received grants and awards for scientific achievements.

This man who had tormented him for so long, who had systemically ripped him to pieces, had had a long, happy and fulfilled life. He’d had a successful career and was still remembered to this day with respect for his scientific contributions. It left a nasty taste in Bucky’s mouth as he read all this, and anger flared up from somewhere within him, along with the thought that this just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right that this man should have had such a good life. He should have been punished. He should have been made to suffer for what he’d done.

Bucky was no longer thinking of Yori, he’d forgotten that his whole purpose in exploring all of this was to find some way to bring Yori closure about the death of his son. His focus on Fennhoff had managed to succeed in diverting his mind away from Yori.

Christina had asked him once if he wanted justice for the things that had happened to him.

He wanted more than justice, he realised. He wanted retribution. He wanted nothing more than to hunt Fennhoff down and make him beg for mercy.  He wanted Fennhoff to feel the same pain and humiliation that he himself had suffered at the man’s hands. And to read that Fennhoff had had such a good life - well, it made him feel rotten inside.

He powered on, reading more and more and clicking link after link, unable to stop, fuelled by his outrage and his desperation to find something out there that might make him feel better.

Eventually he found himself clicking a link in a footnote, which took him to a video which immediately started playing.

The video clip showed Fennhoff being presented with an important award from the scientific community for significant contributions in the field of neuroscience.

Neuroscience, Bucky reminded himself, meant the brain. The man was receiving accolades and praise for his work and study into the functioning of the human brain. Bucky felt a hard cold anger slowly spread within him as he considered just how much of Fennhoff’s research had originated from the experiments the man had conducted on Bucky himself during those early Siberia years; and here the man was now being rewarded.

People really don’t get the punishment they deserve, Bucky thought, as he watched the presenter shake Fennhoff’s hand and wave him up to the podium to give an acceptance speech amid tumultuous applause from the people in the room.

The year was 1970, according to the title above the video. Fennhoff looked old. He’d have been in his mid to late 40s when Bucky had known him, so he would have been at least seventy here.  He looked small and unassuming. He’d lost a lot of weight. It was… odd… to say the least, to see him like this. Inside Bucky’s head Fennhoff had been some kind of monster, giant and inhuman and dangerous, but here he was… old, thin and frail and very, very human. He didn’t look like the same man at all.

Every instinct within him was telling him to stop the video.

Turn it off! Turn it off! his mind screamed at him, but he found himself unable to do so, unable to tell his fingers to swipe the video away and put the phone down. It was as if he was paralysed, just as he had been outside Yori’s door earlier, completely transfixed by the scene playing out on his phone.

He watched as the man shuffled slowly towards the centre of the stage, supported by a younger man holding his arm. Fennhoff tapped the microphone, drew out some cards and began to speak.

And oh that voice…

It engulfed him.

Kill the man, keep the soldier

You need to pay attention

There is only one ending here

 

Bucky had no idea what Fennhoff was saying in the video. He was no longer in his apartment, sitting on his couch and staring at his phone. He was no longer in 2024 in Brooklyn, free and safe after decades of horror. He was back there. Back in Siberia. Back with Fennhoff, Lukin, Zola and the others. Back in the White Room where he’d been kept, alone and in silence, for many months while they waited for his mind to break.

“It’s very simple really,” Fennhoff said, “all you have to do is agree to behave. No more fighting back. No more struggling. No more petty rebellion. We will return to our work together and you will comply with everything I ask of you without complaint. Agree to these terms, and then you can leave this room.”

There’d been enough in him then, the first time Fennhoff had given him the opportunity to leave the White Room, to say ‘no’.

“It’s been four months, Soldier,” Fennhoff continued, “and it’ll be another four before I give you another opportunity to leave.”

“Don’t you want to leave? Don’t you want his to end?”

It was almost kind, the way Fennhoff had asked this of him. Like a concerned parent trying to coax their child into doing the right thing.

And he had wanted it to end. All of it.
 

He wanted to leave the White Room. He wanted to see colour other than white, he even wanted to be in real darkness again. He wanted to be among people, -  any people  - , to be able to talk to someone, to hear someone’s voice. Even if other people brought nothing but pain and fear he still didn’t want to be left here, alone and in silence, day after day after day for months on end.

But there was no ending to any of this. He would come out of this room and return to… to what? To the torture, the questions, the confusing instructions that made his head whirl... to the tricks and the traps, the violence and the pain and humiliation.

He couldn’t even remember why they were doing this.

And he said ‘no’ again.

“No”, he said, “I’ll not comply”

“You will eventually,” Fennhoff replied. “There is only one ending here. The only question is of how long it will take you to get there.”

And he slammed the door in Bucky’s face.

 Bucky remembered banging at the door after Fennhoff had left, throwing himself at it, yelling and shouting.

No, he’d shouted. No, I’ll not comply… I’ll not…

And then he’d put his head in his hands and screamed. He’d not known himself capable of producing such a sound – these were not the screams of a human, but the screaming of a wounded animal, trapped, with no way out.

He’d known in that moment that Fennhoff was right. He would give in. There would be no rescue. There would be no end to this torment. Even death was denied him.

There would be only one ending. It was inevitable.

The video was still playing when Bucky came back to himself.

With the sound of his own animal-like screaming still reverberating in his ears, Bucky drew his attention back to his phone.

I’m not there anymore, he told himself, as he took several deep steadying breaths, it’s over.

He reminded himself that Fennhoff had died decades ago. The man on the video clip didn’t exist anymore. He was a shadow, a ghost, an image. Nothing more than a memory.

He forced himself to focus on what Fennhoff was saying. It was then that he realised the man was speaking in English – he’d never heard him speak in English before – Fennhoff had only ever spoken to him in German.

“Finally,” Fennhoff said, clearly wrapping up his acceptance speech which Bucky had completely missed, “I must give due credit to SHIELD who have funded my research, and supported me in my endeavours, who gave me and many of my colleagues the opportunity to work in this country after the war ended.”

Operation Paperclip Bucky thought. This had been mentioned frequently in the reading he’d just done. Many German scientists, engineers and technicians, some who had even been former Nazi leaders, had been recruited by the United States Government after the war had ended. Evidence of their former war crimes had been eliminated from their records in order to bring intelligent minds to the country to help develop weapons and achieve other scientific goals before other countries did.

That was how Zola had ended up with SHIELD, Bucky knew, working alongside Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. His abhorrent war crimes and crimes against humanity, which had been well known at the time, went completely ignored without punishment or accountability. Bucky remembered reading the briefing on Zola, the day before they’d gone to capture him, reading about the experimentation he’d conducted on children, disabled people, and prisoners of war. He didn’t know anything about Fennhoff’s background before and during the war but he could well imagine it being somewhat similar.

All those crimes forgotten. All wiped clean.

It made him feel sick.

“Of particular note,” Fennhoff continued, “I would like to direct my gratitude to Mrs Sousa, Director of SHIELD, for personally approving my employment and supporting me in my research all these years.”

A woman stepped onto the stage and it took Bucky a moment to realise who it was as he did not recognise the name spoken. But it was undeniably her.

Peggy Carter, he realised.

He wasn’t too surprised to see her there. She’d founded SHIELD; she’d been the Director. She was the one who’d employed Zola and Fennhoff and others like them. She’d worked alongside them for decades.

But it was jarring to see her now, on the stage, walking to join Fennhoff and it really hit him then what that meant. She, Zola, Fennhoff, and even Howard – they’d worked together, collaborated together. Maybe they’d been friendly, engaging in idle chatter as they worked. What projects had Howard worked on with Zola and Fennhoff? Maybe they’d met outside of work, having dinner together with their families or attending work parties and other events.

“It’s Doctor Carter, actually,” he heard Carter say as Fennhoff shook her hand.

Her tone was clipped, and it oozed distaste. Bucky almost smiled at how familiar it was. Carter had often used that very same tone with him. She’d never really liked Bucky. Their early interactions had been polite but distant, but as the war had progressed she’d made less and less effort to hide her low opinion of him and it was obvious in the way she’d always spoken to him. It was almost comforting to think that she too harboured a strong dislike for Fennhoff.

The video ended there, paused at the moment Fennhoff and Carter were shaking hands and he continued to stare at them.

Something was niggling at him about this image but he couldn’t tell what it was that was bothering him. There was something he couldn’t place, like trying to find a word which is on the tip of your tongue that is determined to remain elusive, no matter how hard you try to think of it.

He frowned as he worked his brain to try to figure out what it was that was causing him such consternation. He’d read Carter’s name somewhere recently, he remembered. Where had that been?

It came to him like a bolt of lightning and he swiped the video away and quickly located the article he’d read only last week: the one where Elizabeth Dugan had talked about the murder of her grandfather back in 1978.

What was it he had read?

His eyes raced down the article, skimming through the paragraphs quickly and greedily as he scrolled down the page. He wasn’t even sure what it was he was looking for, but he was certain there was something here that he’d read last week that he needed to find.

And then he found it:

I told everyone it was Bucky Barnes who murdered my grandfather. When I was 18 I met with Margaret Carter, she was Director of SHIELD then, and I told her about it. I thought she believed me. But then she returned and said that I was mistaken and my grandfather’s killer had been apprehended and had killed himself in a French prison.

When Bucky had these words of Elizabeth Dugan’s last week he’d been so focused on the memory of this murder, in such a state of distress about it that he’d completely bypassed this sentence.

He stared at the words now; his heart beating very fast as he tried to work out what it was that was so significant about this. It could be perfectly innocuous. Elizabeth met with Carter and told her that she believed Bucky Barnes had killed her grandfather. Carter looked into it and came up with nothing. It was possible that Hydra found out that Carter was showing an interest and pinned the blame on some other criminal and killed him in a way that made it look like a suicide in order to throw her off the scent. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Bucky closed his eyes tight and willed himself to work this out. He knew in his bones that he was close to something, so close to something really important, but it was drifting away from him. He let out a frustrated groan as the answer continued to elude him, bemoaning his useless and broken brain which insisted on keeping things from him.

He swiped away the article and brought back the video, still paused on the image of Carter and Fennhoff together, their right hands joined in a handshake. He frowned down at the image as his brain worked frantically to put these pieces together.

It’s Doctor Carter, actually

Her voice replayed in his mind. Her clipped tones. Her British accent. Her obvious distaste for the man in front of her.

There was a confusing familiarity about it, and not just because it was so similar to how she had always spoken to him. It was almost like déjà vu in how familiar it was.

Mrs Sousa

It’s Doctor Carter, actually

And then suddenly it came to him.

At long last the pieces finally slotted together to reveal the disturbing and terrifying answer; a revelation so shocking and blood curdling that it took his breath away:

This wasn’t the first time he’d seen the two of them together

He dropped the phone.

Notes:

Operation Paperclip was mentioned, I think, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier - but it did happen in real life. As I have written in the chapter many German scientists and engineers, some of them former Nazi leaders, were employed by the US government after the war for the purposes of working on military technology. Some of these scientists received rewards and honours for their scientific achievements. Even though President Truman forbade any recruitment of Nazi members or Nazi supporters, Nazis were nonetheless recruited, with any incriminating evidence of their Nazi history and war crimes wiped clean from their records. It's been argued that the recruitment of these scientists helped defend against the Soviet Union during the cold war, and that their contributions justified their recruitment even though many were never held accountable for their war crimes.

Chapter 23: Revelations: Part Two

Notes:

This chapter closes up some plot threads I began in the prequel story ‘The Journey of Our Life’ – all the context is provided within this chapter so as usual for those of you who haven’t read that story this should still make sense. I hope I’ve managed to make this chapter accessible for everyone but let me know if not.

I think the only thing I want to highlight (which is mentioned within this chapter, but is worth repeating here) is that I made the fairly significant change that no-one knew Zola was at Krausberg. Steve didn’t meet him, and Bucky didn’t remember that Zola had been there and what had happened to him until it was too late.

 

Revelations: Part Two

 

1960

The Soldier knew immediately upon waking that he was somewhere unfamiliar; and he had no recollection of how he had even got there.

His head hurt, his entire body ached, and he felt weary… so very weary.

And all he knew was confusion, and a vast blank emptiness – a void inside his brain absent of any history, knowledge or memory.

He wracked his brain and screwed his eyes tightly shut in an effort to try to make sense of his situation, to try and dredge up something of substance from deep within.  

                I am the Soldier

That was the only thing he knew with any certainty. It rose up into his mind, unbidden, and he felt a wave of pure revulsion surge within him as he thought those four words – though he had no idea why this knowledge of who he was would prompt such a strong, visceral response.

Having failed to dredge up anything else from his empty mind, he finally opened his eyes to look around and surveyed his surroundings. Perhaps there would be something here that would jog his memory, or give him some context as to what had happened.

The room was bare, devoid of any furnishings, furniture or objects. There were no windows, and one heavy looking metal door. There was nothing else. He would get no clues here.

He thought about all the things he did not know.

His location – he didn’t even know what country he was in
He didn’t know the date
He didn’t know how he’d got here
And he didn’t know who he was waiting for

And while he knew he was The Soldier, he had a keen suspicion that this couldn’t be his actual name, but the moment that thought crossed his mind it was as if a heavy door slammed shut in his mind, blocking him from exploring that any further.

                A lift he suddenly thought in a burst of inspiration, I was in a lift, going down

                Underground

Yes, he was surely underground. That would explain the lack of windows.

Another flash of knowledge – he’d seen military vehicles.


                A military encampment?

That made sense; he was a soldier after all.

But what had happened?

                Try to remember something

His thoughts were suddenly and rudely interrupted by the shriek of a loud, blaring klaxon – a warning alarm, a siren. The noise made the pounding in his head increase and he winced, automatically attempting to put his hands over his ears in order to block out the sound.

And that was when he noticed that he was restrained.

His left arm -

                It’s metal?

– he’d forgotten

He discovered that his metal arm was encased in some kind of vice, firmly attached to the wall. He made a small attempt to pull his arm away from the wall but it remained immovable, possibly some kind of heavy magnet. He knew that he should be able to pull harder, break the magnet, break the wall, and break free. He knew that this shouldn’t be enough to keep imprisoned but he couldn’t dredge up any energy or strength to even attempt to burst himself free.

There was also a thick chain wrapped around his ankle, he noticed. His free arm felt like a dead weight when he tried to reach for it, making him quickly give up any thoughts of freeing himself.

Something was wrong, really wrong

And then it hit him –


                I’ve been drugged

That explained the sluggishness, the weariness, the lack of any coherent thought and his memory loss. He hoped it would all come back in time, sooner rather than later. He just had to be patient.

The alarm continued to blare its obnoxious screaming for what seemed like hours before it very abruptly cut itself off and the room was plunged into a nerve wracking, ominous silence. He felt certain that the alarm was to do with him, and now it had stopped, something was going to happen. And, given the state he’d found himself in, he had a keen idea that whatever was going to happen was not going to be pleasant.

As the ringing in his ears gradually faded away he became aware of voices, slightly muffled through the heavy door, speaking from outside the room he was currently imprisoned in.

He poured all his focus on the voices, hoping that he would learn something which would shed some light on his current predicament.

 “… he say anything?”

This was a man’s voice. The words were soft and he was hard to hear properly due to the sound being blocked by the door. The man spoke with an accent and the Soldier understood the words the man was saying, but he didn’t know what language was being spoken.

“No,” – another man, similarly accented, this voice was clearer, easier to hear. He pictured the men on the other side of the door, the second man standing closer making him easier to hear.

“Found in a homeless shelter,” the second man continued. “It took a lot to bring him in, the whole place was destroyed.”

There was some quiet murmuring; he could barely hear what was being said. The odd word reached his ears:

“law enforcement”

“deaths”

“cover-up”

                Fighting

-  the thought leapt into his mind

                I remember fighting

                The enemy and the innocent

                So many deaths

Violence had brought him here, he remembered now. He’d fought desperately to avoid capture and he had failed. But who had he been fighting. And why?

He knew he had to leave, and quickly. He could feel in his bones that something terrible lay in wait for him, some impending horror, should he be unable to escape.

“Should ask…” the first man said, “it’s been almost a year… he’s not been in a homeless shelter for a year. Where has he been? Who has he met? Who has he spoken to?”

The Soldier thought about this. He did not remember the homeless shelter. He did not have the first idea where he had been or the people he had been around. He was wasting time listening to these two men; he needed to focus on getting free.

Whatever it was he’d been drugged with appeared to be wearing off for he found he had more energy now, and he was able to reach up with his right arm to tug at the restraint pinning his metal arm to the wall.

He could hear some more quiet murmuring from the two men but he wasn’t focusing on them anymore.

 “Family…” he heard one of the men say, “…still has family… what if…?”

The Soldier attempted to pull the metal arm free from its restraint.

                Just rip it off! Tear it off!

He didn’t care whether it was the arm that came off or the restraint – he just needed to get himself away from here and from whatever horrific fate awaited him outside this room.

Metal hit metal and resulted in a loud clanging sound which rang out clearly and reverberated around the empty room. The Soldier froze… the two men outside must have heard…

The voices stopped immediately, and he could hear footsteps walking hurriedly towards the door. He tugged again uselessly at the restraint in a last ditch effort to get free.

                Why am I so weak? Why can’t I get out?

He knew he should be stronger than this, but he still felt drained of any real strength and energy.

The door swung open and a tall, large man strode towards him and, without any preamble, grabbed his right arm and forced a needle through the skin.

The effect was immediate: his brain enveloped in a foggy, blurry, cloud.  He felt woozy; his head became dense as a rock and his right arm dropped heavily to the ground when the man let it go. He felt his whole body relax even though he was trying to will it to do the opposite. It became an effort to continue to sit upright and he slumped weakly against the wall.

Whatever it was that was in that needle, it had the power to completely overpower him.

 He tried to focus on the man who had just drugged him but his vision was too blurry to make out the man’s features in any real detail.

“We can’t afford to wait to try and ask him questions, Arnim,” the man with the needle said, after checking his pulse. “Every moment he is here puts us all in extreme danger.”

The same man then grabbed the Soldier’s chin, painfully forcing his head up, and the Soldier felt a small round pill being pushed between his teeth. He tried to clench his teeth tightly shut, to deny the pill entrance into his body, but he found that he could not. His entire body was too relaxed and malleable, and he was unable to prevent anything from happening to him.

Water was held to his mouth and he gulped it down greedily, suddenly realising how parched he was, and he swallowed the pill before he even realised what was happening.

“You’re affecting his memory!” The other man – Arnim – said, sounding accusatory.

There was no response.

“Johann!” Arnim pressed, forcefully.

“What would you have me do?” The man named Johann asked, sounding frustrated as he let go of the Soldier’s chin. “He’s doped up and drugged up and he needs to stay that way. We don’t have the right equipment here to contain him. We can’t be certain he’d be under control after such a long absence. We can’t wait. He needs to get back to Siberia, and back to normal before something disastrous happens. It doesn’t matter where he’s been; the important thing is that we get this situation properly resolved.”

A door banged loudly outside the room and the Soldier heard footsteps walking closer as the two men snapped to attention, eyeing each other warily, looking apprehensive.

Johann straightened and the Soldier’s eyes followed him round the room as he moved to greet the newcomer.

“Mrs Sousa,” Johann said.

The person – a woman – brushed past him, and stared at the Soldier whose eyes remained fixed on the man.

“It’s Dr Carter actually,” the woman said shortly. She turned back to face the man, “As you well know, Dr Fennhoff, and yet you continue to get this wrong despite my numerous corrections.”

“Dr Carter,” Arnim began, but she cut him off.

“I need some good news Dr Zola,” she instructed. “All Hell has broken loose. I’ve got a dozen dead homeless people, a destroyed shelter, and the deaths of numerous law enforcement officers to explain away. I’ve cleared out Camp Lehigh with no explanation and need to come up with a reason for that. This whole debacle has been a nightmare to deal with…”

The woman - Dr Carter - trailed off as the Soldier’s head banged against the wall, exhausted from the effort of holding his head up.

She stepped forward and the Soldier finally dragged his eyes away from the man, and attempted to focus now on her, but his vision was still too blurry to make out any specific detail.  

“What happened?” she asked the room, and her voice no longer sounder short, impatient and abrasive, but instead sounded soft and uncertain.

“No way of knowing,” Dr Fennhoff replied. “I would advise against sending him to the States again. If I could hazard a guess I’d say he saw something familiar and got confused.”

“It’s the first time anything’s gone wrong,” Dr Zola hastily added.

“And what,” Dr Carter asked, authority creeping back into her voice as she spoke, “are you going to do about it?”

“I’ve got in touch with Siberia,” Dr Fennhoff said. “There’s a man, Rostov, who’s stationed not far from here, who will come to escort him back. We can prepare a plane and get the Soldier prepped and compliant for the journey.”

“Wait,” she said, and the man fell silent.

The woman stepped closer; the Soldier could feel her presence bearing down over him, before she squatted down to be at his level.

The strong scent of perfume invaded his senses, almost making his eyes water. Due to her close proximity he was now able to make out some detail through the blurriness. Dark brown hair hung in curls round her shoulders, a dark blue jacket and skirt, heels that had gone clack! clack! on the floor as she’d walked into the room.

She was just as unknown to him as the two men were, and yet she, like the two men, seemed to know who he was.

He felt a hand on his cheek and his head was being turned once again, forcing him to face her head on. Unlike Dr Fennhoff, however, this one had soft hands, and the touch was gentle. His eyes met hers, and as they made eye contact she let out a soft gasp and flinched away as if she had been bitten.

He watched as she pulled herself shakily to her feet, clearly disconcerted, and wondered what it was that could have elicited such a reaction from her. She smoothed down her skirt with slightly quivering hands and cleared her throat. She continued to stare at him, and he stared back, taking in every movement.

She seemed uncertain. The confidence she’d exuded as she’d entered the room had evaporated. 

“It’s not really him,” she said thoughtfully, as if trying to reassure herself of something, though her body language suggested that she wasn’t properly convinced. 

The statement wasn’t addressed to the two men in the room, she wasn’t asking a question but the man on the right - Dr Fennhoff - , seemed to take it as a question to be answered.

“No,” he said, “it’s not. Barnes has been dead for a long time. This is no more than a shell. There’s nothing left of the man.”

The Soldier continued to stare at the woman, letting the confusing words wash over him. She appeared anxious. She chewed on her lip as she considered Dr Fennhoff’s words and even though she nodded in agreement, she seemed uneasy.

“Maybe…” she said hesitantly, “…maybe he should remain here.”

“Here?” The men spoke loudly in unison, both sounding equally shocked.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Carter said. “Not like this,” she gestured towards the Soldier as she spoke. “Maybe he should remain here, and we can proceed as we had originally planned.”

The two men exchanged glances.

“He can’t be contained here, Dr Carter,” Fennhoff said persuasively, finally using the correct honorific to address her. “We don’t have the equipment necessary. He’s too dangerous and we can’t control him. And that’s notwithstanding the fact that there’s people who will recognise him here, how would we explain his appearance?”

“Years of hard work,” Zola spoke up, “would be wasted. Everything we’ve worked so hard for would be for nothing.”

The woman let out a sigh, sounding frustrated, and she looked back at the Soldier whose eyes remained fixed on her.

“You feel regret, Dr Carter,” Zola noted, his tone calm and almost kind, “for what has happened to the man you knew, but none of this can be undone. We all wanted super-soldiers, and now we have one. Things didn't go as expected during the war, but this is the situation we are in. The Soldier cannot stay here. He needs to return to Siberia where everything is set up to contain him properly.”

Dr Carter scoffed at this. “Hardly,” she said, a scowl forming on her pretty features, “given that he managed to disappear without a trace for so long.”

“The man who I spoke to,” Dr Fennhoff said, “Markarov – he’s in charge there - he’ll understand that this situation must never repeat itself again… I’ll…”

Dr Carter spoke across him, her voice getting louder and angrier as she spoke:

“You took him!” she accused, the words bursting out of her in a furious rage, jerking a finger towards Zola and stepping towards him. “You took him against our agreement! I did everything you asked – I gave you time, I gave you him” – she gestured angrily at Fennhoff – “all this against my better judgement, but you left me little choice given what happened. And it’s all been one mess after another. I’m not filled with confidence by your assertions given everything that’s transpired and your many many failings. You assured me that it would all be done quickly, that Barnes would fall in line without difficulty but you took years…”

“He proved difficult to work with,” Dr Zola retorted, sounding defensive. “It was a harder task than anticipated. The faulty information you supplied led me to expect that he would be less… resilient.”

It suddenly occurred to the Soldier that none of the people in the room were focused on him. They were all turned towards each other, emotional and lashing out, and he might be able to use their lack of attention to his advantage. The drugs he’d been given must have been wearing off, for his mind felt clearer, his vision less blurry, and he remembered that he didn’t want to be here. He reached for the chain round his ankle with the arm that was free and attempted to snap it.

Perhaps he could use the chain as a weapon.  Images flashed in his mind as he mentally played out what his next actions would be. He would snap the chain and he could use it to capture the woman, who was standing closest to him. He would wrap it around her throat and threaten to strangle her. The two men would not take action for they would be afraid he would hurt the woman – while they did not seem to be friends they were all clearly working together – and he would be able to use that to his advantage… She’d said the place they were in had been cleared out… even if there were a handful of people left, they wouldn’t be able to stop him.

And perhaps he could do it without killing anyone.

The woman was practically shouting now, jabbing a finger towards Zola threateningly.

“That man was a nervous wreck by the time he fell from that train,” she said forcefully. “It’s not my fault you failed to capitalise on that.”

“Enough!”

That was Fennhoff, the only one still paying the Soldier any attention, and he’d noticed the Soldier reaching for the chain. The other two fell silent as Fennhoff once again grabbed the Soldier’s arm and forced a needle through the skin. The Soldier almost succeeded in pulling his arm free, and his mind was screaming at him to grab Fennhoff by the neck and smash his head against the wall, but then it was too late. He’d not gained enough strength to challenge them, and once again he’d been overcome.

The other two watched nervously as Fennhoff carried out his work.

“We cannot change the past,” Fennhoff said finally after checking that the Soldier was properly under control and posed no threat to any of them. “Barnes is not a person anymore; he’s not able to be around people. He is a weapon, a very dangerous weapon, and he needs to be properly contained. He has very strict and rigid protocols that must be followed. No-one knows this more than I do. In a few hours he will be collected, and we can all put this nightmare situation behind us and carry on.”

He ushered the other two towards the door.

“Before he goes,” Dr Zola said, “I would like to take samples from him. Recreating the serum is proving problematic.”

“Dr Erskine managed it,” Carter said pointedly, still sounding confrontational.

“If you’d allow Stark to assist me, I might make better progress,” he shot back at her.

“No,” she replied, “no. He knew…” she faltered slightly, “Stark knew Barnes. They were friends. If you gave Stark samples from a new super-soldier he’d want to know where it all came from. And he’s got enough smarts and resources to figure it out. And he’d not…”

She looked back at the Soldier, who was now struggling to maintain consciousness, trying to keep his head up, still somehow managing to continue to watch them.

“He’d not condone…” she trailed off.

 “If it takes longer to recreate, then it takes longer,” she said decisively, her tone clearly relaying that she would not brook any further argument. “You leave Stark out of it unless we get another source.”

As the Soldier struggle to resist the irresistible pull of sleep that was overwhelming him, the names he’d heard echoed in his head:

Zola, Fennhoff, Sousa, Carter, Markarov, Rostov, Erskine, Stark, Barnes

- and not one of them made any sense.

It all seemed dreadfully important, but he couldn’t properly formulate any meaning out of what was being said. He didn’t understand how any of this could possibly relate to him.

“Fine,” she conceded, but she still sounded annoyed, “take what you need and send him back. Tell Markarov I’m holding him personally responsible, and heads will roll if this happens again.”

 She left, slamming the door behind her as the Soldier finally lost his battle with consciousness and passed out.

 

Present Day

 

“Peggy never really liked me very much,” Bucky said. He was with Christina, having just finished telling her about his memory of seeing Carter, Zola and Fennhoff all together.

“It’s not that she hated me,” he continued, “we just got off on the wrong foot. The first time I met her properly I flirted with her for ages, because she was a beautiful woman and that’s what Steve would have expected me to do.”

He remembered that night well. He’d recommended that Steve meet up with a group of soldiers he’d been imprisoned with in Krausberg and consider recruiting them for his team. It had gone well. Steve had taken to the motley group that had helped Bucky survive Krausberg and they’d all accepted his offer to continue the fight against Hydra, as Bucky had suspected they would.

They’re all idiots Bucky had told Steve

And what about you? Steve had asked are you ready to follow ‘Captain America’ into the Jaws of Death?

That little guy from Brooklyn? Absolutely Bucky had replied

And then Bucky had teased Steve about the uniform, jokingly picking fun at him. It had been jovial and light-hearted. Steve may have had a new body and a new purpose, but he was still at heart the same Steve that Bucky had grown up with. Bucky had been worried that Steve would lose himself, would lose everything that made him special, but no – Steve had proven that even though the serum had changed his physical appearance and attributes, that his soul and heart remained just the same.

Are you ready to follow ‘Captain America’ into the Jaws of Death?

Of course he had been ready.

Bucky had accepted the fact that he might die during the war. Soldiers died all the time, it was a risk and it was one he’d been willing to face. He’d cheated death in Krausberg so it made sense that death would catch up to him sometime later down the line. Never in his wildest nightmares could he have imagined that what would end up happening would be a fate far far worse than death, far worse than anything he’d experienced at Krausberg.

And then Agent Carter had shown up, looking stunning in a red dress, and Bucky knew that Steve would expect him to flirt with her. That was who he was. That was his carefully cultivated identity that he had formed in order to protect himself from discovery.

Bucky Barnes: ladies’ man, womaniser. Philanderer his Uncle Harry had called him.

And ever since then Peggy had had a dim view of him, although it hadn’t turned into an active dislike until later on – when Dugan had let slip that he’d seen Bucky kissing another man one rainy night in London, and she and Phillips had used that information to blackmail him into working for them, separating him from Steve, and sending him off to be their assassin, doing all the dirty work that couldn’t be associated with ‘Captain America’.

“Even through everything that happened,” he continued, “all that she did, I could never have imagined her capable of being part of...” he trailed off and fell into a depressed silence.

The memory of what had happened in 1960 had affected him deeply. The image of Peggy Carter, Zola and Fennhoff, standing over him in collusion with each other, was burned into his soul. He couldn’t understand how he’d ever forgotten it.

I know that what happened in 1960 is quite possibly one of the most important things that has ever happened to me

He’d told Christina that, and by God he’d been right.

The three people who’d hurt him the most all together in one room while he’d been at his weakest. And not only that, he’d been held at Camp Lehigh, the place where Steve had received his training, the place that had been the origin of the SSR, then to become SHIELD.

The woman Steve had trusted, confided in and loved.

The implications this memory held were not lost on him, and it answered a lot of questions he’d been desperate to have answered.

Hydra were able to grow within SHIELD because Peggy Carter had allowed it to do so. He’d wondered whether she’d been incompetent or complicit – well, now he knew.

Zola had been released to go to Siberia after being captured in 1945 because Peggy Carter, along with Colonel Phillips, had freed him. Fennhoff had later been released from SHIELD custody to join Zola in Siberia for the purpose of breaking Bucky down because she had allowed this to happen. They’d not deceived her – she knew full well what they’d been doing in Siberia.

When Elizabeth Dugan had met with Carter sometime in the mid-80s to tell her that Bucky Barnes had murdered her grandfather, Carter had already known exactly who the Winter Soldier was, and she’d fobbed Elizabeth off with a lie.

Had she ever felt any regret or remorse for these actions?

You feel regret Zola had said to Carter in his memory. And when Carter had looked at the Soldier her eyes had seemed sad. Maybe she’d never meant for any of this to happen, but she’d played the cards she’d been dealt.

“It’s a horrendous betrayal,” Christina said, bringing him out of his thoughts and finding the perfect way to summarise exactly how Bucky was feeling.

Betrayed.

Hurt.

Devastated

And also… confused…

“I can’t wrap my head around it,” he said, after a further long pause. “Carter fought tirelessly against Hydra. She was the one who’d freed Erskine from the Red Skull, before the war even started. And then there was her relationship with Steve, and everything she did for him and for the war effort. It doesn’t make any sense.”

He’d spent hours and hours replaying over and over every little detail of what had happened in that underground room in Camp Lehigh, agonising over every word he’d heard, every touch he’d felt, until he’d been satisfied that there was nothing more he could recover from his memory.

“Was she that desperate to recreate the Super-Soldier serum,” he asked thoughtfully, not really expecting Christina to answer him, “that she would become part of something that she’d been against for so long?”

 He supposed she must have been. Everyone had been desperate to create Super-Soldiers. It had been an arms race; for everyone knew that the country who managed to create an army of super-soldiers would be able to overpower every other country for decades to come.

Hadn’t he said as much himself to Steve, a lifetime ago?

Everyone and their mother is trying to create Super-Soldiers apparently… they’re obsessed with the idea of creating a Super-Soldier army

And not just any Super-Soldiers, he thought bitterly. They’d wanted controllable Super-Soldiers.

Steve had frustrated Colonel Phillips to no end, Bucky remembered, because Steve had been a bit of a wild card. Steve disobeyed direct orders, came up with plans on the fly, neglected to request permission before taking action that hadn’t been part of their mission parameters. Steve had always exercised his own autonomy and made it clear that he would do whatever he felt was right, even if it went against express orders. Hadn’t that been the exact circumstances under which Bucky himself had been liberated from Krausberg?

But Phillips had not approved of Steve’s independent streak, his forthrightness, and his stubbornness.

The day before they’d left to capture Zola in 1945 Phillips had spoken to Bucky alone. He’d told Bucky that he had plans for him that extended before the ending of the war. He’d said that Steve was insubordinate and a liability, that Dr Erskine had bullied him into choosing Steve when Phillips had wanted to choose a proper soldier for the serum.

I wanted someone who would be more like you, Phillips had said, a real soldier, someone who could follow orders and be effective and efficient

I’ve got big plans for you Phillips had said

And what was it Carter had said in 1960 to Zola?

We can proceed as originally planned

And Zola had said

Things didn't go as expected during the war

Exactly how far back did this betrayal go? he wondered, and his heart beat faster and faster as he considered this, and the new implications that this would bring.

What Carter had said suggested that she’d been in cahoots with Zola even during the war.

Surely not?

Had Carter and Phillips been colluding with Zola during the war? How far back did this stem?

Had they known that Zola had injected him with the serum in Krausberg and reached out to him for his expertise?

How would they have known to do so? After all, no-one had known that Zola was at Krausberg. Not even Bucky himself had remembered Zola being there until he’d received the briefing for the mission to capture Zola the day before he’d fallen from the train.

“I told her…” he murmured, more to himself than to Christina. “After Krausberg I told her that there’d been a German scientist there who had injected me with… something… and she seemed… interested, but I couldn’t remember enough.”

Are you sure he was German? Carter had asked, and she’d sounded urgent, forceful, like it mattered. He’d not realised at the time that her interest might have meant something. He’d been in pain, battered and bruised, having nearly died after weeks of torture and experimentation that he wasn’t in any capacity to read hidden meaning in her words.

Carter may have put two and two together even as far back as then, he realised, that the person Bucky had described as ‘the crazy German scientist’ had actually been the Swiss Dr Zola. Had she and Colonel Phillips known all along that he’d been injected with the serum?

That period of time he’d been blackmailed – had that just been them testing him? – seeing how far they could push him, just how much he could be controlled by them, in preparation for activating the serum and turning him into a compliant and obedient Super-Soldier?

What use do we have for a Super-Soldier that can’t be controlled? – Phillips had said

And in Krausberg he’d heard Zola say:

An Uncontrollable Super-Soldier is a problematic thing

They’d both said almost the exact same thing. They’d wanted the same thing – a Super-Soldier that would do as he was told and who wouldn’t go out on their own, potentially turning against or disobeying those who would have control over them. Phillips and Carter weren’t getting that with Steve so they teamed up with Zola to turn Bucky into exactly that once they'd found out what had happened in Krausberg.

But it hadn’t gone as planned, that’s what Carter had said.

And then it hit him:

“I wasn’t supposed to fall from the train,” he said, still really speaking to himself, rather than Christina, who was sitting quietly opposite him, allowing his thought processes to play out without interruption.

He remembered Steve, lying unconscious in the train car with three Hydra Soldiers aiming their guns at him.

Zola said we can shoot this one

one of the men had said

This one

As in not the other one

Had that been the plan all along? Allow Steve to die on the train, bring Zola back to the SSR and use him to activate the serum that he’d injected into Bucky years before in Krausberg?

But then Bucky had fallen off the train and been whisked away to Siberia, and Zola had had the upper-hand – having the world’s only Super-Soldier in his possession, and being the only person capable of coming close to replicating Dr Erskine’s achievement. And therefore Carter and Phillips had had to let Zola free, and had to aid him if they wanted access to the serum.

Is that what had happened?

But still some things just didn’t quite add up properly. Bucky couldn’t believe that Carter would have taken part in any plan which involved Steve’s death. Their relationship had been real, genuine. They’d been planning a future together.

Maybe Peggy hadn’t been aware of that part of the plan.

Or maybe she’d not been as in love with Steve as he’d thought.

It suddenly occurred to Bucky that he’d probably never know the full truth of what had really happened. He’d probably never fully understand the depths of the betrayal that he’d experienced during the war. 

“They knew what was happening to me,” he said coldly, referring to Carter and Phillips. “They knew… all that time… Siberia… Zola, Lukin, Fennhoff…” he cut himself off, unable to even speak so great was his anger. He realised that his entire body was shaking in his fury.

He took several, deep heaving breaths in an attempt to calm himself down, before he was able to continue voicing his thoughts.

“What happened in Siberia,” he said, making a concerted effort to keep his voice steady and controlled, “that time after I fell from the train… it was…” he shook his head – no one word could really properly sum up the pure horror of his early Siberia years – “it was horrible,” he said and he felt his eyes sting as he said that word.

“Yes it was,” Christina agreed.

“And she knew,” he said, and his voice trembled slightly due to the emotion behind these words. “She knew, and I was here and she sent me back.”

“Yes she did,” Christina said, continuing to validate him.

Bucky turned his head away, because he knew that if he looked at her and saw any kind of sympathy or kindness in her eyes that he would probably break down in tears.

 “And General Markarov,” Bucky said, suddenly making another horrific realisation, “he punished me for that. He beat, fucked and zapped it out of me,” he quoted, remembering the words General Markarov had said to him back in 1963. “She sent me back to that.”

And now he was angry again.

“All for the sake of creating more Super-Soldiers,” he said scathingly. “Super-Soldiers,” he repeated, practically spitting the word in his distaste, “They all end up mad, bad or dead. They’re a dream which needs to die.”

 “I’m done,” he then told Christina forthrightly, slapping his hand on his knee. “I’m done with seeking things out. You warned me about this, I should have listened to you. I’m never doing this again. I wish I had never remembered this.”

And he meant it this time. No more googling himself. No more looking up what had happened to people he’d known. No more digging through online articles, no more pushing his brain to remember things it didn’t want to remember.

Maybe some things are best left forgotten

“What do you want me to do with this information?” she asked him. “Shall I pass it on so that this can be properly looked into?”

“I don’t care,” Bucky muttered glumly, “do whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”

They were all dead now, what good would it do for this revelation to be made known? It’s not like Carter could be brought to justice for her actions. She couldn’t be investigated, brought in, questioned, stand trial or imprisoned. She, like all of them, had lived a happy, long life, free of any negative consequences for the crimes they had committed.   

It wasn’t right or fair or just in anyway, but that was the reality of the situation, and he would just have to deal with it.

At least, he thought as he walked home after his session ended, he’d had confirmation that Howard Stark hadn’t been involved with any of this. He’d wondered about Howard’s involvement with Hydra and Zola, and it was reassuring to know for certain that Howard hadn’t been part of it. He may have engaged in other morally ambiguous projects, and Bucky was pretty certain Howard must have had some involvement with Isaiah Bradley’s treatment, or at least knowledge of it given that he’d had the serum in 1991, but at least he’d not been part of the conspiracy against Bucky himself.

It would have been so much worse, he reasoned as he dug into his pockets for a cigarette, if Howard had been there in 1960, colluding with Zola, Fennhoff and Carter. Imagine if he’d learned that all the time Howard was helping him during the war that Howard was secretly working against him! That would have been the ultimate betrayal. At least he’d been spared that.

Thank God Steve hadn’t lived to know any of this, he thought as he continued his fruitless search through his pockets; this would have broken him.

He then immediately felt like the world’s worst person for even allowing this thought to pass through his mind, for of course he’d far rather Steve were alive and well and with him. And yet he knew for certain that knowledge of Peggy’s betrayal would have completely shattered Steve, and it was far better that Steve had never known anything about it.

Bucky stepped into a nearby convenience store to pick up some more cigarettes. As he waited to be served his eyes fell on a newspaper that was folded neatly on the counter in front of him. On the front page was a photo of Steve, in his Captain America uniform, holding aloft his shield.

Bucky snatched up the paper before he could stop himself, his eyes roved over the article as certain phrases jumped out at him.

Captain America’s shield is coming to the Smithsonian

Donated to the museum from noted Avenger Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon

Ceremony to be held next Saturday for Wilson to formally pass over the iconic shield

Wilson is expected to give a speech

That was a picture of Sam in the bottom corner of the front page, wearing the wings and the googles. Bucky stared at the photo, feeling his anger bubbling to the surface once more.

What are you doing Sam? he thought You were supposed to take the shield and keep his legacy alive. It’s what Steve wanted

Bucky slowly lowered the paper, completely aghast at this newest revelation.

Donated by Sam Wilson

He read the words again, completely unaware that a man had now appeared at the counter and was asking him what he wanted.

No, he thought furiously. Oh Hell No!

There would be Hell to pay for this.

 

 

 

Notes:

Bucky going missing from Hydra in 1960 was a plot point that was inspired by the Captain America: Winter Soldier comic (2005) by Ed Brubaker – where it details that Bucky (as the Winter Soldier) was sent on a mission to the States in 1973 and went awol and was later recaptured after being found in a ’flophouse’. He was forcibly returned and it was advised that he never again be sent on missions to the States in order to prevent this from happening again.

I’ve obviously made some changes to how the situation plays out in the comic. There’s still more to be learned about what happened in 1960 – what prompted him to abscond, and where he went, but that’s for later.

The idea behind Bucky being blackmailed during the war and sent off to do ‘dirty work’ was similarly inspired by the Brubaker Captain America comic in which Bucky during the war would sneak behind enemy lines as a cold blooded assassin, to do the work that Captain America could not be part of. The idea of that really intrigued me and I wanted to include that within Bucky’s history in my series but it didn’t fit with his character that he would willingly work as an assassin, so I came up with the blackmail plot that’s been referenced a few times in this story.

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Chapter 24: Steve's Legacy

Notes:

A couple of things I want to address as we move into 'the falcon and the winter soldier' territory.

Act II will follow the main story beats from the show however, there will be added scenes and most (probably all) of the show scenes are changed in some way – sometimes small changes, sometimes massive ones. Dialogue, some of the action, and in some cases I will just ignore some things completely. If you’ve read The Journey Of Our Life and Lost; then Found, then you will have a pretty good idea as to how I tend to bounce off canon scenes and develop them a bit further, and also how much I love creating emotionally deep, soul baring, and meaningful conversations between two characters.

Sam – I like Sam a lot and I want to do right by him. He’s not appeared much yet but I hope the story has been respectful to him so far. He gets a lot more screen time from here on out. While Bucky is the main character and I won’t be diving as deep into Sam as I have done for Bucky, I will not be ignoring the important themes that make Sam is own unique individual character (and hero). I also want to point out when it comes to the racial themes – I am neither black nor American. This means I might not always get things right with Sam. If I get things wrong please point it out to me particularly if I’ve done something inadvertently offensive and I will edit.

And also please note that when Bucky has critical thoughts about Sam and blames him for everything  remember that Bucky is not exactly what one would call a reliable narrator, and there will be growth in his thought processes.

Act Two – The Paradox of Living

 

[Prometheus]: ‘Fate, Doom, Necessity, Destiny. These are real. But so are your mind, will and spirit, Heracles. You can walk away from it all… Forget Zeus’s plans for you. Forget Hera and Eurystheus. Forget their cruel exploitation of your remorse. You have more than paid. Do it. Go. You are Free.’

‘I would… I would like such a life. Oh, how I would…’ said Heracles. ‘Yet I know that is not what I was put on this earth to do or be. Not because you or the oracles have told me, but because I feel it. I know what I am capable of. To deny it would be a betrayal. I would end my days hating myself.’

‘You see?’ said Prometheus. ‘It is your fate to be Heracles the hero, burdened with labours, yet it is also your choice. You choose to submit to it. Such is the paradox of living. We willingly accept that we have no will.’

This was all a touch too profound for Heracles. He saw, but did not see.

Mythos: Volume II: Heroes by Stephen Fry. 2018

 

Steve’s Legacy

 

The sun was rising.

Bucky shifted, stretching his legs out in front of him in an effort to dissipate the pins and needles he had developed as a result of sitting for several hours on the cold hard tarmac.

He’d been here all night. He arrived in Washington very late the evening before, made his way to the Smithsonian museum, and had then spent the entire night positioned directly opposite the steps leading up to the pillared main entrance and waited for morning to arrive.

11am was when the ceremony for Sam to hand over Steve’s shield was due to start. That wouldn’t be for several more hours. Bucky hadn’t slept at all, he’d barely moved since he’d sat down, hardly even blinked so focused he was on the building opposite.

He was used to sitting still, used to waiting – he’d been a sniper after all. Waiting, watching and patience were skills he had in spades.

But while his body was still, his mind had been racing the whole night long – subjecting him to a confusing and varying range of emotions one after another.

Anger.

Yes, there was anger. Anger at the situation. Anger at Sam for giving up Steve’s legacy without even trying. There was anger at Steve for dying in the first place, for always being the hero who does the right thing, no matter what the consequences would be for himself. And then there was anger at himself, for his own failures and uselessness. For never being able to make the right choices and constantly screwing up again and again and again…

And then there were the feelings of sorrow and loss. For the shield. For Steve. And for the time they should have spent together and all the things that should have been said that now never would. For all the memories he’d reacquired since Steve died that they’d now never be able to talk about.

Sorrow and loss about Sam, who he’d liked and who’d been his friend before Bucky had ruined everything.

And then there would be guilt and shame. Because deep down Bucky couldn’t help but feel that all of this was his own fault, that Sam didn’t deserve his anger, and that if he’d just done things right he and Sam would still be talking, and Sam wouldn’t be giving up the shield.

And then he’d remember why he was here and the anger would re-emerge, and he would get cross with Sam all over again, assigning him the blame for everything that had gone wrong over the last few months. And then he would start the cycle of emotional turmoil all over again.

The night had not passed easily or quickly. Bucky felt that sometimes being trapped in his own head with nothing but his own thoughts to entertain him could be absolutely hellish.

After a couple more hours the world started to wake up and the empty streets began to fill with the noisy hubbub of people getting on with their lives. People started going in and out the museum. Cleaners. Security guards. Other members of staff.

One staff member walked right passed him and dropped some coins on the ground next to him.

Bucky wasn’t surprised he’d been taken for a homeless person. He wasn’t exactly dressed to impress and he knew he looked scruffy, and slobbish.

A few more people dropped coins as they walked past him to enter the building. Bucky gathered them up and resolved to later find someone else to give them to as he pulled himself to his feet to find somewhere else to linger while he waited for something to happen.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do now it was morning. In a few hours Sam would arrive with the shield and would hand it over. He’d not exactly planned on being here today, it had been a spur of the moment decision late yesterday afternoon and he knew even then that it probably hadn’t been the best idea.

He’d promised Christina yesterday morning that he had no intentions of going to the Smithsonian to see Sam pass over the shield. And he had meant it at the time. But it had become an intrusive thought that continuously niggled at him the more he obsessed over it, and almost before he knew what he was doing he found himself en-route to Washington DC once again.

At least the situation with Sam had successfully distracted him from the revelations about Peggy Carter.

He’d gone in to therapy yesterday morning to meet a Christina who’d expected him to want to talk more about what happened in 1960, but instead he’d flung the newspaper featuring Sam and the shield in front of her and immediately began on a tirade about Sam.

 

 

“Steve wanted the shield to be passed to Sam,” Bucky griped at her. “He wanted Sam to use it. I wanted Sam to use it! I thought he would, eventually.”

He paced angrily around the room as he spoke, for he was far too agitated to sit still. He’d been in this state ever since Wednesday when he’d discovered the newspaper in the first place.

He’d almost rung Sam a couple of times; finger hovering over Sam’s name on his phone for hours unable to actually follow through and make contact. He’d typed out numerous messages to Sam which he’d not sent, some angry, some apologetic.

He’d then spent hours like a man obsessed, trawling the internet for any information he could find about Sam, about the shield, trying to find something that might help resolve everything. There wasn’t anything, of course.

“Why didn’t he say anything to me about it?” Bucky said furiously, not actually expecting Christina to answer him, but just taking the opportunity to have someone to vent to, to voice all the questions he’d been asking himself since he’d found out about this.

“You’d think he could have let me know,” he continued moaning. “He could have given me some warning. Or if he didn’t want the damn thing he could have given it to me. Shit.”

He flung himself down angrily on the sofa and glared daggers at the newspaper which remained on the table between him and Christina.

He opened his mouth to continue the rant but Christina spoke up, actually responding to the question he’d not intended to be answered.

“How?” she asked him.

Bucky faltered, caught off guard and thrown by her question, his mind working through his rant as he tried to work out what she was asking him.

“How what?” he asked finally.

“How could he have told you,” she elaborated, “when you’ve been refusing to speak with him?”

He opened his mouth, about to provide a furious and impassioned rebuttal to her comment but then found himself completely unable to come up with anything.

Instead he stared across at her, the cogs turning in his brain as he tried to find something flawed in her reasoning.

This wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t be. This was Sam’s fault. Sam was giving up. Sam was shitting all over Steve’s legacy like it meant nothing. Sam hadn’t even had the decency to let him know what he was going to do, to give him a heads up so he didn’t have to find out like this. Sam could have sent a text.

But then the more he thought about it, the more he thought over his last excruciating interactions with Sam, the more he realised that he couldn’t actually challenge what Christina had quite rightfully pointed out to him.

There’s something I think we need to talk about

Sam had said that to Bucky over the phone the last time they’d spoken.

It’s about the sh…

Oh God.

Bucky felt his stomach drop.

Sam had tried to talk to him about it.

Sam had reached out to Bucky despite the fact that Bucky had been ignoring him for several weeks already for the express purpose of discussing the shield.

And what had Bucky said?

There is nothing for us to talk about.

Stop calling me

He’d yelled down the phone at Sam without even listening to what Sam had called him to say.

He felt sick.

That was the missed opportunity, Bucky realised in horror. That was the moment where he and Sam could have reconnected. They could have spoken about the shield, made things right with each other, and maybe… maybe they’d not be in this position right now.

Was this just yet another in a very long list of ways that Bucky Barnes continually manages to fuck things up?

And there was Christina opposite him, waiting patiently for a response, looking as if she knew perfectly well what thoughts were going through his head right now.

He hated that.

But he had no argument to counter her with.

He twisted his gloved fingers together in his lap, feeling resentful and annoyed.

And there was regret too. Tonnes of it.

“I don’t need you to be the voice of reason here, Christina,” he said, trying not to sound petulant.

“Then what do you need me to be?” she asked without missing a beat.

Bucky considered this.

“To be outraged on my behalf,” he said finally.

“Outraged on your behalf?” Christina repeated back at him, and while she put no new inflections on the words, he could tell how ridiculous it sounded. He let out a deep sigh and stared gloomily out of the window.

“It won’t stay in the museum,” he said despondently. “They won’t just let it gather dust. The shield can’t go to just anyone, it needs to be in the right hands, and I thought it was. I thought Sam was the right person. Steve thought Sam was the right person. This is Steve’s legacy and he’s throwing it away like it’s nothing.”

“It says there’s going to be a handing over ceremony tomorrow,” Christina pointed out. “Are you planning on going?”

She asked this casually, but Bucky could tell that this was anything but a casual enquiry. She was trying to work out if this was going to trigger him into doing something crazy again.

“No,” he replied. This wasn’t a lie. He really didn’t have any intention to go and watch Sam spit in the face of Steve’s final wishes.

His hand reached up and fiddled with the chain of his dog tags as he spoke.

“No, I don’t think so,” he continued. “I’d just end up causing a scene. And here I am trying to convince you that I’m all stable so I can get off those damn pills. I imagine that if I had a massive freakout in a public place that you might have an opinion about that.”

 

As he thought back to what he’d said to Christina only the day before he felt a wave of guilt flood over him. He’d been truthful to her, it’s just that his brain hadn’t shut up about it for the rest of the day, and he’d found himself coming here regardless.

He’d have to tell her about this.

But he wasn’t coming here to cause a scene, he told himself – almost as a reminder – he was only here to observe. Maybe she’d be okay about it if he told her he just went, hung around for a bit, and then left without any drama whatsoever.

He found a new spot to stand in, a bit further away but still in sight of the main entrance. Lots of people were gathering now. Journalists with cameras, official looking men in suits, and a congregation of onlookers had started to swarm the steps, phones out, and looking excited.

Bucky pulled out his own phone and opened up Instagram.

Social media was not something Bucky had any interest in. He already hated the feeling his phone gave him of having to be constantly available to people, and when he’d discovered social media websites he’d been even more horrified. He couldn’t fathom what on Earth motivated people to want to share every minute and boring detail about their lives for everybody in the world to see.

But he had installed Instagram only the day before, because while he’d been googling Sam endlessly since Wednesday he’d discovered his connection to a young Lieutenant called Jaoquin Torres.

Sam didn’t have any social media. Or if he did he was one of the few who managed to keep his internet presence very private.

There was also an incredibly small amount of information about him on the internet stemming from his time before being an Avenger. There was nothing there that was personal. There was nothing about Sam’s family, his history, where he went to school, where he’d worked or who his friends were. Most people had some presence on the internet but Sam did not. Bucky could well assume that when Sam first became part of the Avengers that Tony Stark had wiped all trace of him off the internet. All Bucky had managed to find after hours of internet searching was an old photograph taken some time in the 1980s of a very young Sam and his sister being featured in a Louisiana newspaper for helping out in a homeless kitchen.

But while Sam didn’t have any social media, Sam’s photo had popped up during one of his searches linked to the Instagram account of someone called Jaoquin Torres.

And there had been more than one photo. As Bucky waited for the event to start he idly scrolled through Torres’ Instagram as he waited, bypassing photos of food and animals and focusing only on Sam related content.

Yesterday he’d seen a video Torres had uploaded of Sam speaking Arabic. They’d been in Tunisia earlier this week – one of Sam’s classified military contracts Bucky supposed. Someone should probably tell Sam that Torres was uploading classified information onto Instagram which anyone with any skills in navigating the internet would be able to access.

Sam had once joked that Bucky might have trouble with modern technology such as how to use his phone. Well, it had taken Bucky less than 30 minutes yesterday to learn pretty much the whole of Torres’ life story – where he went to school, how and when he joined the air force, the name of his first girlfriend, where he was based, and also that he starting accompanying Sam on his military contracts about two months ago.

Bucky played back the video that Torres had uploaded of Sam speaking Arabic. Bucky hadn’t known that Sam could speak any other languages. He felt a pang as he realised that was yet another thing he’d never bothered to find out about Sam. In the video Sam appeared to be fixing up his damaged wings (another skill Bucky hadn’t known Sam possessed). He looked a little beaten up; Bucky supposed this video was filmed shortly after Sam had captured some bad guys or something. Despite this however Sam looked cheerful, and his eyes still retained that mischievous glint that Bucky knew all too well.

He’d watched the video about a hundred times since discovering it, obsessing over every tiny detail.

Christina would tell him that this obsessiveness wasn’t healthy and that he should just pick up the phone, call Sam and speak with him. That would be the sensible thing to do, rather than behaving like some neurotic creepy stalker.

It was about 10.15am when some cars pulled up outside the entrance and the crowd really started to go wild. Bucky felt his heart beat speed up as he watched Sam get out of the middle car clutching a very large, oval case which of course must contain the shield. Sam looked - Bucky couldn’t believe his eyes – he looked cheerful. Bucky watched flabbergasted as Sam smiled and waved, signed autographs, and posed for photos as he walked through the crowd to meet with the museum director at the top of the steps.

After a photo opportunity at the entrance, Sam disappeared into the museum.

Bucky circled round the outside of the building to where he knew from his reconnaissance the night before that he’d have a good view of the podium where Sam would be giving his speech and passing over the shield to the museum.

The museum was closed to the public today so he couldn’t go inside. But he didn’t want to anyway, not after his experience the last time he’d been here.

He instead watched through the window as Sam greeted more people, shook hands, posed for photos and then people took to their seats as 11am approached and Sam took centre stage.

Bucky couldn’t hear Sam’s speech, but from the way everyone in the room was smiling, nodding and occasionally laughing Bucky could tell that Sam had full control of the room and they were all hanging on his every word.

Charismatic. Funny. Witty. Effervescent.

Bucky’s mind ran through Sam’s good qualities despite himself and despite the anger he was feeling.

It wasn’t until right at this very moment that he’d realised how much he’d missed Sam. As he watched Sam through the glass he felt a pang of regret that had nothing to do with Steve or the shield. It was about Sam himself.

Sam, the only person left in the world who called him ‘Bucky’ instead of ‘James’ or ‘Barnes.’ He’d not realised how much that mattered to him before it was gone. ‘Bucky’ was the name his friends had always called him. Sam had even called him ‘Buck’ on occasion, a name that had only ever been used by Steve. And not only that, Sam had asked him if he was okay with being called ‘Buck’. Sam had been considerate of his feelings.

Sam had cared about him.

Bucky swallowed a lump that had started to form in his throat and his eyes stung at the reminder of what he’d thrown away.

For all the ranting he’d done to Christina about Sam, he knew that he bore a great deal of responsibility for this. He should have been paying attention to Sam. He remembered all those times he’d brought up the shield and Sam had changed the subject.

Will you be using the shield? Bucky had asked Sam once

Not the time, Buck Sam had replied, and there’d been something in his tone. A reluctance, a weariness, perhaps a feeling of a great weight bearing down on him that he’d never asked for.

Why had he never asked Sam how he felt about it?

All those times he’d been with Sam and never once asked him how he felt about carrying on Steve’s legacy because he’d been so preoccupied with all of his own drama.

In fact, Bucky realised with a further regretful pang, Sam had tried to initiate conversation with him about Steve many times. He’d often asked questions about Steve, about what he’d been like as a young man before the serum. And each time Bucky had always refused to entertain such questions.

Speaking about Steve would have been a perfect segueway into speaking about the shield and Sam’s feelings about it.  

If only he’d noticed, asked Sam about it, maybe they’d not be in this position right now. Maybe they’d still be on speaking terms… maybe they’d still be friends… maybe even…

The memory of the kiss that should never have happened rose up in his mind and he hastily squashed it back down.

He watched as Sam pulled the shield out of its case.

This is made from the rarest material in the world. That’s all there is of it. And I can’t imagine a more worthy person to have the rarest metal in the world than you

The memory rose unbidden: Howard passing over the shield to Steve. Steve had held up the shield for the very first time, posing with it in much the same way that Sam was now.

What do you think?

Steve had asked him.

And in that moment Bucky had felt so immensely proud of him.

I think it’s perfect, he’d replied.

 

It took every ounce of self-discipline Bucky had to prevent himself from smashing through the windows and charging in there to grab the shield and make off with it. Instead he clenched his fists and forced himself to remain still.

Bucky remembered practicing throwing the shield with Steve in the forests of Czechoslovakia (as it was called then); all the trees Steve had managed to tear down before mastering it completely. Steve had struggled a quite a lot initially with managing his new strength.

It’s a constant effort Steve had said, having to hold back. Even after all these months it doesn’t come naturally at all

I imagine it will in time and with practise Bucky had said, trying to give Steve a little optimism

Practice and try not to destroy the whole forest he’d joked

Memory after memory flashed through his mind as he watched Sam hand over the shield.

He remembered Steve once throwing the shield with such force that it had cut right through a tank and out the other side.

He also thought of Steve before the shield. Back when his shield was something he’d just grabbed from the USO prop tent before he’d rushed over to save Bucky and the others from Hydra at Krausberg. He remembered seeing Steve for the first time, in his new body clutching that useless, dented object, as Steve had rushed over to release him from his bonds. Stars and Stripes had adorned that first shield and it had provided the inspiration for the real shield. That was where it had all began.

It was gone. It was all over.

Sam had been entrusted with something extremely precious and he’d just passed it over like it was nothing.

Bucky could feel his anger rising up again replacing the guilt and regret he’d felt only moments before.

Seeing Sam become Captain America hadn’t just been a desire, he realised as he watched Sam shake more hands. It had been a burning need to see someone carrying on Steve’s legacy who had known Steve, who’d been his close friend, who’d shared his values, morals and ethics. Sam had been that person. Because God knows it could never have been Bucky himself.

If a crazy Russian assassin is the best America has to offer then this country has some serious problems Bucky had told Sam the only time they’d actually managed to speak about the shield, back when he was in the Raft.

It was always supposed to be Sam. And now?

What would become of Steve’s legacy now?

Notes:

The quote I have chosen for Act II is from Stephen’s Fry’s Mythos collection which is his retelling of the Greek Myths and Legends. I chose this quote because when I read it for the first time it instantly in my mind connected to Bucky Barnes: the idea that no matter what you want or what you’ve suffered that you have to carry on regardless because to do otherwise would be a betrayal to yourself. That is what a hero does. And for me that explains a lot of Bucky’s motivations in getting involved in things in the show when he says that all he wants is peace. To my mind this may well provide a bit of an explanation as to why he will later be involved with the Thunderbolts. The theme in this quote runs throughout Act II and becomes particularly apparent towards the end.

I also wanted to chuck out one last reminder that this is a slow burn story, as in icebergs probably move faster! If you read this story, you have to be patient.

I do have a tumblr. I’m not really active on it, but I’ve been thinking about doing more on there. I did post some Sam & Bucky stuff there about a year ago. I've recently created a side blog for fanfiction updates and such for if I ever do want to link to my stuff on there (undecided.  People can be a bit fervent on tumblr!) however if you want to ask about when I’ll post and stuff I think you can message me or something there and I might even reply: www.tumblr.com/squigglyhopperfanfic

Chapter 25: Reunion: Part One

Notes:

Just a note because I mention Colonel Rhodes in this chapter - as far as I am concerned Secret Invasion did not happen. There are no skrulls.

Reunion: Part One

 

 

Nine days. 

It had only been nine days.

Bucky almost couldn’t believe what was happening in front of his very eyes.

Captain America was back.

Not Steve. Not Sam. Not anyone who was worthy of it, no. A new Captain America.

Bucky had to quell the urge to destroy his television as he watched the news, completely aghast.

He’d figured – known – that the shield wouldn’t stay in the museum for very long, but he’d certainly not expected it to be thrown into the hands of another so soon.

He’d literally just been talking about it with Christina that very morning. She’d given up trying to get him to talk about other topics. Four therapy sessions had now passed since he’d watched Sam hand over the shield and he’d been unable to even think, let alone talk about anything else.

He’d told her about going to the Smithsonian. In fact, he’d not even needed to tell her. When he’d arrived at therapy on the Monday she’d asked him how the handing over ceremony went. He didn’t even bother trying to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“It was like I was watching Steve die all over again,” he told her.

She did give recognition to the fact that he’d attended on Saturday without causing a scene or launching himself into some confrontation with Sam that he knew he’d regret later. And on some level he did actually feel quite proud of himself about that. Even just a couple of months earlier he’d have had a much harder time reining himself in – he might even have failed completely.

He couldn’t shake the disconcerting feeling that perhaps Christina was right and the medication he’d been given was actually doing something. He’d never admit that to her though.

He told her what it had felt like watching Sam pass over the shield. The confusing mix of emotions and memories that had overwhelmed him – anger, devastation, betrayal, sorrow, loss, grief, guilt.

He told Christina that while he didn’t confront Sam or cause a scene, he came close to doing so.  After the ceremony had ended he’d headed back round to the main entrance and waited, alongside the masses, for Sam to re-emerge. He’d had some fleeting idea that he might try to waylay Sam before he left, and when Sam finally came into sight he’d started to push himself through the clamouring crowd with some vague idea of just walking up to Sam and confronting him there and then in front of all these people.

In hindsight Bucky could at least now see that that had been a very poorly thought out idea and he was very glad that he’d not actually followed through with it. As he was pushing forward through the crowd he’d noticed that another man had exited the museum with Sam and this had given him pause.

This was someone he recognised.

Colonel Rhodes his mind conjured up.

One of Sam’s former Avenger friends. He’d been there in Romania in 2016, and later when they’d fought at the airport over the quinjet.

He’d had a flying metal suit of armour, just like Tony Stark. He’d been Stark’s best friend.  Bucky remembered that the man had been severely injured while trying to apprehend him.

This was also a man who worked closely alongside the President, acting as his advisor. For all Bucky knew Colonel Rhodes could well be one of the people who had access to his therapy notes and he was someone with influence.

This was not someone to create a scene in front of.

He’d seen reason, turned, and pushed his way back through the crowd.

 

As he was clearly not in a state to speak about anything else, Christina tried to use his obsessiveness to get him to dig deep, to explore exactly why this mattered to him so much and trying to help him through it.

 

The shield isn’t Steve

He never got closure (that damn word again) over Steve’s death – all those feelings of unfinished business that still lingered

What he meant when he spoke about Steve’s Legacy

What Sam’s own motivations might have been

His feelings for Sam and how they tied in to his disappointment about Sam’s decision

“It’s curious how you used words such as devastated and betrayed to describe how you felt about this,” she remarked, “as though Sam’s rejection of the shield was also a rejection of yourself.”

 

None of this helped.

 

At night his usual nightmares of blood and death were interspersed with images of Steve, Sam and the shield. Steve’s death. Sam passing the shield over to another. In his dreams he was there again, at the Smithsonian, watching through the window as Sam gave the shield away. Completely paralysed, unable to stop it. Over and over and over again.

 

And now here he was, only nine days later, watching this man – John Walker – being introduced as:

“Our new Captain America!”

So soon.

Too soon to have been something only recently organised.

This had to have been planned months ago. They couldn’t possibly have had this guy lined up ready to replace Steve in the space of two weeks. They’d had a whole televised nationwide tour planned, events, ceremonies, interviews.

And it would have taken time to choose the guy in the first place. It would have taken time to explore potential candidates, interview, put him through trials and tests, presumably some PR training.

This guy was the best of the best, apparently, according to the television. Military man. Peak human. Highly skilled. The perfect soldier.

Steve had been none of those things when he’d been chosen.

You told me Bucky remembered saying to Steve, that Dr Erskine chose you because you were a good person, not a good soldier. He chose you because you’re you. With everything that entails.

All those Generals and Colonels back during the war who had desperately wanted Steve to be the perfect soldier, to toe the line, do as he was told. Steve had refused to be placed in that box.

And now they had a Captain America who slotted perfectly into it.

Had Sam known about this? Or had he genuinely believed that the shield would remain unused, on display, amongst all the other mementos of a dead man?

Sam had rung him up to speak about the shield the day he’d met Yori and ended up in hospital. Was that because the government was already pushing him to give up the shield?

Had Sam been lied to? Was the event at the Smithsonian just part of a ruse set up in order to convince Sam to give the shield up so that they could have a Captain America that they deemed suitable, and not one who would follow his own heart and instincts?

Once again he berated himself for not listening to Sam back when Sam had rung him to talk about this.

All these thoughts whirled through Bucky’s mind as he watched John Walker, all dressed up in stars and stripes, run across a sports field, smiling and waving, amid fireworks and cheerleaders and a marching band.

His growing anger reached a peak when the interviewer asked him if he had ever met Captain America.

“He feels like a brother,” Walker said.

Bucky turned the television off, unable to bear any more of this… this utter farce… and instead he just sat there a moment in silence, staring at his own reflection in the television, letting the words stew.

How dare they…?

Who gave them the right…?

And also:

How the fuck did you let this happen, Sam?

Bucky’s hand seemed to move of its own accord, picking up his phone and swiping through the contacts. Before he even gave himself a chance to think about what he was doing, he located Sam’s name and pressed the call button.

His heart pounded quickly and heavily in his chest as the phone rang, and the pounding became faster and faster the longer it took for Sam to answer.

Would Sam answer?

What if he actually did? Bucky had no idea what he would say. He just felt a cold, hard fury deep inside him and he needed to unleash it on someone. And Sam was responsible for this.

It went to voicemail.

Bucky hung up without leaving a message and stared at his phone, considering what to do next.

He’d just made up his mind to call Sam again and leave a voice message when his own phone alerted him to an incoming call.

Sam’s name flashed up on the screen. Sam was calling him back.

This was it.

Bucky took a deep breath, reminded himself to stay calm, and accepted the call.

He didn’t wait for Sam to speak.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” were the first words out of his mouth. He couldn’t help himself: the words poured out of him in a rush, his tone accusatory and bitter.

So much for remaining calm he thought.

He probably shouldn’t have called Sam immediately after hearing the news, he realised belatedly. He should have taken a moment to calm down, clear his head, have a smoke and then rung Sam. He was too tense, wound too tight, and he could already tell that this conversation was going to be a train wreck.

“For God’s sake, Bucky,” Sam said. He sounded exasperated. “We’ve not spoken in months. You could at least ask how I am. I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking.”

Sarcasm. Bucky felt his anger intensify and bit his lip, willing himself to be calm. Shouting at Sam was what had got him into this situation, and even now through his intense emotive state he was capable of recognising that losing his temper would be supremely unproductive.

“How could you?” he asked, his tone reproachful which was at least better than anger.

Sam heaved a great sigh down the phone.

“Okay,” Sam said, now sounding resigned, all trace of sarcasm gone. “We need to talk about this. But not over the phone, Bucky. We need to talk properly, in person.”

“Okay!” Bucky exclaimed immediately. “Where are you? I’ll come to you right now.”

“No!” Sam injected. “Shit. I can’t… I can’t meet yet,” he said. “I’ve got… I’m leaving first thing in the morning. Something’s come up unexpectedly and I… I can’t deal with this right now.”

Bucky scowled at the phone.

“Why did you bother calling me back if you don’t want to talk?” he asked through gritted teeth, still somehow managing to contain his anger from spilling out.

“And don’t I regret that now!” Sam said. “No – look,” he continued hurriedly before Bucky could respond to Sam’s further sarcasm. “I called you back,” Sam said, his tone now sincere, “because I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you.”

And suddenly Bucky felt deflated. All the anger melted away in spite of himself, and to his horror he realised that his eyes were welling up.

He didn’t dare speak because if he did he genuinely thought he would end up crying down the phone.

Sam had called him back because he knew Bucky would feel deliberately ignored if he didn’t. Despite everything that had happened between them, all those months that Bucky had ignored Sam, Sam had remained considerate of Bucky’s feelings. And Sam would have known that Bucky would be angry, he would have known this was going to be an unpleasant conversation, and he’d called back anyway because he still cared enough about him to want to spare him the feeling of being rejected.

He felt touched at the reminder that Sam did, in fact, still care about him. And Sam was providing Bucky with far more courtesy than Bucky had ever afforded Sam.

It was disconcerting feeling – he’d been determined to be angry with Sam and instead he felt… moved, gratified and… and…

Was that affection?

Bucky stamped that feeling down quickly.

He also couldn’t help feeling how nice it felt to hear Sam call him Bucky.  

There was a lot of background noise coming down the phone. Bucky could hear voices, and the sound of engines.

“I’ll call you when I get back,” Sam said, “and we’ll arrange to meet. And then we’ll talk properly, okay?”

It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay in the slightest,  but Bucky still couldn’t bring himself to speak because he knew if he did that Sam would be able to tell that he was on the verge of tears.

“Just a sec,” Sam said. Bucky could then hear him talking to someone else about getting the plane ready for first thing in the morning.

Bucky swallowed, and used Sam’s distraction to get his feelings back under control.

“Is that Torres?” Bucky guessed when Sam returned to the call.

“How do you know about…?” Sam began but then stopped.

“I want to talk to you,” Sam said. “I think we should talk. Not just about the shield. There’s a lot I think we need to talk about.”

Bucky felt his heart leap – his brain immediately filling in the details of what Sam was not saying. Sam would want to talk about the last time they met – the kiss and Bucky’s reaction to Sam’s rejection. Sam would want to talk about the phone call where Bucky had shouted down the phone at him after agreeing to speak to him.

He didn’t want to talk about those things. He didn’t want to bring all that to the surface. It would mean talking to Sam about his emotionally vulnerable comment, it would mean talking to Sam about Yori and – Bucky realised in horror – it would mean talking about how Bucky had ended up in hospital immediately after that last phone call with Sam because he’d attacked himself with a knife. He didn’t want Sam to ever know about that.

Bucky just wanted to talk to Sam about the shield. He wanted… well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted. An acknowledgement of guilt perhaps – freeing Bucky from his own feelings of guilt and responsibility. Some sign that Sam regretted his decision and was sorry for it. An acceptance that Sam had abandoned Steve’s legacy. A solution.

“And these are not conversations we can have over the phone,” Sam continued reasonably.

Bucky remained silent.

“Okay then,” Sam said, affecting a cheerful tone. “I won’t be away long. I’ll call you when I’m back. Stay safe.”

 “Don’t…” Bucky began, but it was too late. Sam had already ended the call.

There was a pounding in Bucky’s head as he stared at the phone long after Sam had left the call. He felt confused and disconcerted. That call hadn’t been effective in any way. And now Sam was leaving, probably leaving the country. It would be ages before they’d get the chance to speak.

He didn’t notice how tightly he was clenching his phone in his fist before it was too late.

Well damn, he thought as he stared dispassionately at his now crushed phone; that was the second phone he’d managed to break. He’d broken the last one because of Sam as well.

He threw his wrecked phone aside and made a decision.

He didn’t care what Sam said, there was no way he was going to wait an indefinite period of time before he and Sam were able to finish this conversation. And even though Sam hadn’t told him where he was, Bucky had a good idea where he would find him. Sam was with Torres, and Bucky knew from his research into the other man exactly where Sam would be leaving from tomorrow morning.

And, even better, if he approached Sam with other people around it would prevent Sam from bringing up the topics that Bucky didn’t want to speak about.

He’d be there first thing in the morning to meet Sam and he wasn’t going to let Sam leave without getting a proper explanation. And an apology. And a solution to the problem of John Walker.

He would get none of those things.

He’d been correct though – Sam was exactly where Bucky thought he would be. It should have been harder to be allowed entry into the military airbase the following morning, but the guard at the entrance just waved him through with a cheerful grin when he said he was there to meet Sam. The man even told Bucky where to find him.

There were posters up of John Walker adorning the walls bearing the motif Cap is Back! Bucky glared angrily at one as he passed and resisted the urge to tear it off the wall.

Sam did not seem in the least bit surprised to see him. A look of resignation crossed his features as he saw Bucky approach and he gestured to Torres to go on ahead to the plane without him.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Bucky asked as he joined Sam, greeting Sam with the same question he’d greeted him with on the phone the evening before.

“I told you,” Sam said, ignoring the question completely, “that this is not a good time. I can’t believe you actually turned up here, Bucky. I told you to wait.”

“Did you know?” Bucky continued to press, as if Sam hadn’t said anything.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment, and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, as if he were trying to summon up the patience to deal with an unpleasant interruption. This didn’t make Bucky feel any better.

“No,” Sam said finally, opening his eyes and looking directly into Bucky’s own. “No, I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

Bucky didn’t even wait a second before launching immediately into a further attack.

“How could you not see this happening?” he demanded. “They were never going to let that shield rot in a museum, Sam. How could you let this happen? How could you be so naïve? What were you thinking? You had no right…”

Throughout Bucky’s tirade, Sam stood there patiently, calmly, waiting for him to finish. It wasn’t until Bucky said you had no right that his calm demeanour suddenly snapped.

“No,” Sam said firmly, jabbing a finger towards Bucky’s chest and stepping forward.

“You don’t get to do this, Bucky,” Sam said forcefully.

Bucky opened his mouth to carry on but Sam silenced him with a further jab towards his chest and a sharp glare.

“You have ignored me for months,” Sam said. “You don’t get to do this. You can’t just refuse to speak to me, yell at me down the phone, ignore my simple request to wait and then just turn up and start shouting at me while I’m working about what I can and can’t do.”

Sam looked positively furious and this took Bucky by surprise. He’d not expected Sam to be angry. He’d never seen Sam angry.

Sam was supposed to be apologetic, not angry.

Taken aback, Bucky lowered his eyes and took a step back, creating some distance between the two of them and allowing the tension to reduce a bit.

He was starting to regret this. Maybe he should have waited.

Sam turned back to him.

“Look Buck,” Sam said, taking a hold of his own anger and now speaking calmly – and god Bucky couldn’t help the slight thrill that rushed through him to hear Sam still call him Buck – “I said we would talk when I get back and we will. I understand your feelings, I really do, but this is not the way for us to have this conversation.”

Sam laid a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky made no effort to shake the hand off as the weight of it was oddly comforting.  

“I saw you at the Smithsonian,” Bucky said, eliciting a surprised reaction from Sam – so Sam hadn’t seen him lurking around there after all. “I read about it in the newspaper and wanted to see if you would go through with it.”

Sam nodded, and for the first time he looked a little chagrined.

 “I won’t apologise for giving away the shield,” Sam said. “I had my reasons, even though I don’t think you’ll understand them. But I am sorry that you had to find out the way you did. I thought about… I almost rang you several times. I didn’t want to send it in a text. But you said you didn’t want to talk to me.”

Bucky internally cringed at the reminder of their last call and how much he’d screwed up. This conversation was not going at all the way he’d wanted it to. He’d gotten an apology from Sam but it wasn’t the apology he’d wanted and it made him feel hollow inside for it brought up all his own feelings of guilt and responsibility that he wanted Sam to feel accountable for.

“This is a situation we need to accept,” Sam said, still in his calm, patient and very kind tone. “There is nothing we can do about it. The shield… it’s gone. It’s over.”

Bucky’s eyes met Sam’s once again but this time there was no anger between them. Bucky saw in Sam’s eyes a reflection of his own disappointment and sorrow and he could tell that Sam felt just as devastated about the situation as he did.

He had to resist the very strong urge to reach up and grasp Sam’s hand, still resting on his shoulder, with his own.

Accept it? Bucky shook his head. He wouldn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept it. They had to come up with a solution. Both of them together, surely they could?

“No,” he said, “I won’t. I can’t.”

Sam removed his hand.

“I’ve got to get going,” Sam said, gesturing towards Torres who was waiting patiently by the plane. Torres gave a little wave to the two of them.

“Wait,” Bucky said, desperate to keep Sam in place. They’d finally reached some kind of understanding and he was desperate to keep it. If Sam left, Bucky would spend the next few days in his head, embroiled in his anger, ranting about Sam in therapy, and they’d lose this reconnection they’d just managed to tentatively rebuild. He positioned himself in front of Sam effectively preventing him from walking away to join Torres at the plane.

“No,” Bucky implored, “we’re not done here.”

“Well I am,” Sam said, “I’ve got a timeframe here, Bucky, and I have to go. This is important.”

“What could be more important than this?” Bucky asked, genuinely flummoxed. He couldn’t envision any kind of reality in which the current situation with the shield would not take priority over anything else.

Sam sighed, and then started to tell him where he was going and why.

And yes Sam was right. This was important.

It was all very alarming.

Sam told him about a group of malcontents whose goal appeared to be trying to return the world to its pre-blip state, all of whom possessed extraordinary strength.

Surely not…

A memory surfaced into Bucky’s mind – a group of super-soldiers in Siberia, one of Hydra’s many failed experimentations to recreate the serum. He’d been tasked with training them, and they had all gone rogue.

Mad, bad or dead he thought. A constant refrain that played in his mind whenever he thought about Super-Soldiers. They all end up mad, bad or dead.

They’re a dream that needs to die

It was hardly surprising that there would be people out there still trying to recreate the serum; if someone had managed to do so, it was indeed very worrying.

And was this what Sam was going to face?

Bucky suddenly felt the last shreds of his previous annoyance and anger with Sam be replaced with concern and worry. Sam was incredibly capable, he knew that; but if he was facing enhanced individuals he would be out of his depth. And despite all his confusing and overwhelming emotions about the shield, his concern for Sam’s safety was greater.

Sam himself appeared to have not even considered that he might be facing serum enhanced super-soldiers. He was nattering away about ‘The Big Three’ – a term Bucky had never even heard of.

“Aliens, androids and wizards,” Sam explained when Bucky questioned him on it.

Bucky had no idea how it happened… all of a sudden they were bickering.

It was as if all the awkwardness and tension between them had melted away. It was as if they’d returned back to how it had been before Bucky had cried in front of Sam and then thrown himself at him. Back to when their dynamic had been jovial, friendly and full of teasing and light banter.

Oh God, he’d missed this. This… this friendship. He’d not realised how much he’d been yearning for it.

Bucky had come here to angrily confront Sam about the shield and demand an admission of guilt and an apology and it hadn’t gone that way at all. And now here he was arguing with Sam about wizards and sorcerers, about The Hobbit of all things, and insulting Sam’s drone. He couldn’t help enjoying himself, and he could tell that Sam was feeling the same.

And there was something else Bucky realised; that no matter how he felt about Sam and the shield, there was no way in Hell he was going to let Sam face a group of possibly super-powered individuals without proper back up. Absolutely not.

Sam was going to Germany. Germany was one of the countries that Bucky was allowed to travel to without fearing arrest.

“I’m coming with you,” Bucky said decisively, in a tone that clearly indicated that he would brook no argument to this.

“Oh no,” Sam said, suddenly sounding very alarmed. “No, no no. You can’t come with me. You’re not allowed. Your pardon -”

“- says…” Bucky cut across Sam, “my pardon says I’m allowed to involve myself in avenger type activities so long as I am appropriately supervised.”

He spread his arms out wide as he walked backwards away from Sam towards the plane that Torres was getting ready.

“So supervise me,” he said, giving a mock bow, arms still outstretched before spinning on his heel and walking to join a bemused looking Torres on the plane.

“You’re insufferable,” he heard Sam say behind him and he couldn’t help himself from smiling.

 

Notes:

I'm going to be honest - I have agonised over this chapter as it is actually really difficult to use canon scenes whilst remaining consistent and faithful to the characters as I have written them throughout Act One. Ultimately, this Sam and Bucky are in very different places from the MCU Sam and Bucky and you can't just copy and paste actions and dialogue from the show and expect it to fit with their characters as I have established them already in this story. I rewrote this chapter so many times because originally I felt that Bucky was too angry at Sam than was warranted given where Bucky is at with his emotions and thought processes and I wanted them to also reach some understanding with each other so that it doesn't feel too much of a leap for them to be more friendly with each other over the next few chapters.

I have no idea if any of that ramble makes sense. But I eventually finished the chapter and I think I feel happy with how it ended up.

Chapter 26: Reunion: Part Two

 

Reunion: Part Two

 

When Bucky had left that morning to go and confront Sam he never in his wildest dreams could have imagined that this was where he would end up: flying to Germany in a military jet and potentially about to get into a fight with a group of super-powered individuals.

Despite his assurances to Sam about his pardon, Bucky had a horrid feeling that he was really pushing at the boundaries of what he was and wasn’t allowed to do; but it was too late to back out now. They’d reached their destination and there Sam was, suiting up and preparing to launch himself out of the plane.

It wasn’t until Bucky had shaken off his own jacket and grabbed a communication device that he pushed into his ear, that he realised that Sam actually had no expectations that Bucky would accompany him any further. While Sam hadn’t shared details of any of his plans with Bucky during the flight, Bucky had expected that once they’d reached their destination they would land and have the time to talk things through. As it was, Sam had spent the journey refusing to entertain Bucky’s questions about where exactly they were going, and what they were going to do once they got there, and then suddenly without any warning starting preparing himself to vacate the plan while they were still in the air.

This had to be deliberate Bucky thought as he stared in dismay at the open plane door that Sam had just thrown himself out of.

“Enjoy your ride, Buck!” Sam had said cheerfully moments before he’d vanished.

Sam thought Bucky wouldn’t be able to follow him. He was wrong.

Bucky stepped closer to the open door of the plane and peered out at the ground whizzing so fast down below. The wind battered hard against him, and the ground seemed so very far away. He felt slightly sick.

“Where’s the ‘chute?” he asked Torres who was hovering nearby, his eyes sill fixed on the ground far below.

He didn’t need Torres to tell him that they were too low for a parachute. He knew that already. Nor did he need to ask Torres how high up they were but he did anyway. He knew he was just biding for time, hoping that Sam might come back, or that some other solution would magically materialise which would mean he wouldn’t have to throw himself out of a moving plane with nothing to prevent a very hard and uncomfortable landing.

He knew he could make it without injury. Well, without serious injury, he corrected himself. His mind mentally calculated the likeliness of injury and how long it would take to recover. He’d probably be fine. The issue was that he genuinely didn’t want to do it.

And then a little thought entered his mind – maybe he didn’t have to. He was already having doubts about getting involved with this. He had a feeling that Christina wouldn’t approve. He had a feeling that he probably shouldn’t be getting himself into situations like this without permission. His pardon technically allowed for it, yes, but probably only after risk assessments, with proper contingency plans in place in case things went wrong.

He had an out. Sam had left Bucky high up in the air with no way to get down. He could stay with Torres while he landed the plane and wait for Sam to finish and meet back up with them.

But then…

Sam had gone. He had gone to fight an unknown number of people of unknown strength and abilities and he was on his own. Bucky was involved now, and he needed to help. If Sam got seriously hurt or even died, then Bucky would be responsible and he’d never forgive himself.

“Right,” he said, more to himself than to Torres who was still hovering nearby and appeared to have no idea what Bucky was about to do. “Okay, then.”

Now resolved, it suddenly occurred to Bucky that he had no idea what he was about to leap out into. For all he knew Sam had landed right in the middle of several super-soldiers and was already engaging them in a fight. Bucky could potentially land right in the middle of combat.

He ran the fingers of his right hand over the sleeve covering his metal arm and considered. He didn’t need to have his arm exposed. The old arm, with all its moving parts, often got caught on clothing and it was more effective to have it uncovered, but that wasn’t the case with the new vibranium arm. But there were benefits to having his arm uncovered if he was about to immediately find himself in a fight.

Firstly, the arm made him recognisable as the Winter Soldier. And while that wasn’t who he was anymore and he hated it, it’s the first thing anyone who saw it would think about which would be a benefit to him. The exposed metal arm creates fear and uncertainty. Fear makes people pause. And it could give him an advantage in a fight.

Secondly, when the metal arm was exposed people tended to focus on it, often forgetting that the rest of him was actually a super-powered human and also incredibly dangerous. This made people careless, often giving him an advantage as they wouldn’t focus on his other arm and result in them fighting poorly, leaving easy openings that he could take advantage of.

And if he were about to fight super-soldiers he couldn’t just rely on his own enhanced strength to carry him through; if he could gain an easy advantage he should take it, no matter how distasteful he found it.

He let out a sigh and started to pull off his gloves. Most of the time he liked pretending that the metal arm didn’t exist – the vibranium arm didn’t feel the same as the old one for it was made to feel as real as any normal arm, and it was often easy to pretend it wasn’t there – and the last thing he wanted was to have it out on display for everyone to see, but he knew that would probably be the best thing he could do if he were about to get involved in combat with other people as strong as him.

His internal agonising felt like it had taken hours, but in reality only a few seconds had passed by the time he edged himself closer to the opening and took several deep breaths, mentally readying himself for what he was about to do.

It shouldn’t be this difficult, he thought. As the Winter Soldier he would have thrown himself out already, head first even, without taking a moment to even think about it. Because someone would have told him to complete the mission no matter what, and he would have complied. There was never any doubt, no room for fear, just the simple desire to follow orders and to complete his assignment efficiently and effectively.

But this was different, he thought, no-one had told him to be here.

This is my choice

He was resolved. He reached up with his fingers to the seam where his sleeve met the body of his top, and tore down, separating the sleeve from the rest of his shirt and pulling it off entirely.

He flung his gloves and his sleeve at Torres whose eyes, he noticed, immediately flickered down to take in the sleek black and gold metal that made up his arm, now completely exposed.

Torres eye’s widened as it clearly suddenly occurred to him what Bucky was about to do, as he automatically took hold of Bucky’s discarded clothing.

Bucky didn’t give Torres a moment to try to talk him out of it. He didn’t give himself a moment to think about it any further as that would risk him changing his mind. Instead he closed his eyes and jumped.

He’d clearly picked a bad moment to jump. The wind was particularly strong and buffeted him around like a rag doll. He opened his eyes for a fraction of a second and then immediately regretted it as he saw the ground looming closer. His stomach swooped and a horrible sense of impending doom flooded through him, and then suddenly it was over. He hit a tree, got flipped over and landed heavily and very ungracefully on his back.

A brief flash of snowy mountains shot through his mind for a split second before he opened his eyes and took in the sun shining overhead, the trees, and all the green that surrounded him.

Bucky let out a loud groan and remained supine, arms and legs outstretched as he stared up at the sky above. He was fine. He’d hit the back of his head on a stone or a tree root or something as he’d landed, but that was the extent of it. It was more the shock from what he had just done that kept him from being able to pull himself to his feet just yet.

Fortunately there appeared to be no fighting going on around him, but then he’d taken a long moment to jump after Sam, the plane was moving and it was windy – he’d probably ended up far far away from where Sam was right now.

Bucky put a hand to his ear and tapped his communication device.

“Sam?” he asked.

“You know I have that on camera right?” Sam’s voice came through the ear piece, laden with humour, and Bucky groaned again when Redwing, Sam’s drone, silently appeared above him.

“Did you never learn to land on your feet?” Sam asked as Bucky finally managed to drag himself into a sitting position and prepared himself to stand.

“One more word Sam, and I’ll break the damn thing,” Bucky said. But he wasn’t serious. And he knew Sam could tell he wasn’t being serious. Bucky didn’t genuinely feel annoyed; he was actually feeling a little proud of himself for getting down to the ground, and he was also more relieved that Sam wasn’t angry that Bucky had jumped after him. In fact, it actually seemed like he’d almost expected it, as Sam expressed no surprise or outrage at all.

“Why do you seem so old?” Sam joked as Bucky, groaning once again, slowly pulled himself to his feel.

“Because I am old,” Bucky replied as he patted at his clothes to remove the dirt. “I’m retired. I have a pension.”

“Steve never landed like that,” Sam remarked.

“Well, Steve had the shield to land on didn’t he?” Bucky asked pointedly.

That shut Sam up. There was a pause and then:

“Head North,” was all Sam said, and then there was silence. The drone flew away and Bucky jogged after it.

When he met up with Sam he expected Sam to make some complaint about having followed him. But he didn’t. Instead he immediately pulled Bucky over to one side and used Redwing to show him the Flag Smashers who were loading crates into two trucks.

They determined that there were eight people. Sam and Bucky got as close as they could without being detected but it wasn’t clear what exactly was going on.

“Are we here to confront them?” Bucky asked, “Or just to get information?”

“I want to know what they’re up to,” Sam said, pressing buttons on his wrist to direct Redwing to get even closer and scan the trucks.

“Looks like there’s a hostage,” Sam said thoughtfully, as the trucks started to drive off.

And then suddenly everything happened very quickly.

Sam’s words triggered something in Bucky. The thought of an innocent person being held prisoner in order to aid a group of terrorists launched him into action, and he found himself racing after the lorries, grabbing hold of the farthest one, ripping off the door, and gaining entry while it was still in motion.

And there was a person in there, amongst all the crates, hiding in the shadows.

Bucky knew something felt off, but he was caught off guard by how young and unassuming the girl looked. And he was certainly not expecting her to be able to pack the punch that she did.

As he got thrown back onto the second lorry and pulled up by two more people onto the roof, he was already mentally kicking himself.

You’re getting sloppy, Barnes he told himself as he pushed himself away from the two new people and put as much distance as he could between them and him. The girl jumped up too and stood next to them. They were all masked, entire faces covered – a woman and two men.

Bucky surveyed them cautiously. The strength the three of them had already exhibited told him beyond any doubt that these were super-soldiers, just as he had suspected. And there were potentially five more somewhere – two driving the trucks and therefore another three who may appear at any moment.

They looked young, potentially inexperienced, he thought, but there was no guarantee of that. Shuri had told him that the serum could slow the aging process considerably so they could all be far older than they seemed, depending on how long they’d been enhanced for. He clenched his fists and got himself into a battle ready position, arms up, legs tense, his mind and body ready to spring into action at any moment.

But the three weren’t moving. He could see their eyes through openings in the masks and he could tell that they were wary. Their eyes were fixed on his arm – he had been right to have it uncovered – and they were reluctant to engage him in a fight. That was good. Bucky turned slightly so that the metal arm was facing them, hoping it would keep their focus which would be to his advantage in the fight ahead.

Their reluctance to launch into a fight gave Bucky a moment to think.

This was going to end in a fight, it was unavoidable now, and he had to be careful. Super-soldiers or no, if he ended up killing one of them, or causing irreversible harm, this could mean the end for him when it came to his freedom and his pardon. He’d not got permission to be here, no-one knew he was here, and anyway he wasn’t supposed to be fighting anymore. That part of his life was over.

Defensive strategies only then, he determined, as he watched the three Flag Smashers make eye contact with each other, and he knew they were about to attack before they even moved.

They were inexperienced fighters, he could tell that almost immediately. They were sloppy, left openings, and they did not work well together. They’d been given incredible strength but had no knowledge of how to properly use it. There were no skills, no strategy, or co-ordination, just brute strength and punches. Bucky held back, responding only to defend himself as his mind desperately raced to figure out what to do and how he could end this fight where he was outnumbered without things getting lethal. Knocking out a super-soldier was no easy task, not even by another one.

And then the girl – the first one who he’d thought was a hostage – suddenly threw herself in the air and Bucky and the other two turned to watch as she plucked Redwing out of the sky and smashed it to pieces before landing with a heavy thud back onto the roof of the speeding lorry.

Bastard Bucky thought. For all that he joked with Sam about hating his drone; he knew Sam held genuine affection for his computerised bird companion, often speaking about it as if it were a real person. And not only that, Sam had named that drone after Riley and Bucky felt real genuine outrage on Sam’s behalf when he saw it get torn apart in front of him.

And then Sam was there, landing smoothly on the second lorry as the other three Flag Smashers finally made an appearance, and the fight suddenly took a turn, becoming more violent and dangerous.

There were six of them, and they were all enhanced, and while Sam was holding his own amazingly well, using his wings to knock them back, and his jets to dodge by taking to the air, Bucky felt himself getting increasingly more panicked as he continued to engage in defensive manoeuvres only.

And then…

Bucky thought he was seeing things.

Surely not?

One of the Flag Smashers attacking Sam was knocked back by a large flying disc that seemed to have appeared out of thin air, before it bounded back in the direction it had come.

Steve’s shield?

Bucky found himself frozen to the spot, completely dumbfounded, his eyes tracing the path the shield had gone back to… back to…

John Walker

How Bucky hadn’t heard the helicopter approach was beyond him. He supposed he’d been too  focused on the fight, on Sam, and on making sure he didn’t fatally maim or kill someone that he’d not been paying attention to anything else going on around him.

Being sloppy again he thought. He really was out of practise.

And there was Walker, the new Captain America, in the stars and stripes with a companion alongside him, leaping down to join the fight on top of the lorries, wielding Steve’s shield.

Walker was shouting something, but all Bucky could hear was the pounding of his own heart in his ears, as a rage started to build up from somewhere deep within him.

His next punch knocked a Flag Smasher out cold and he barely noticed.

And then… there was a gun shot. Bucky practically felt his soul leave his body as a bullet ricocheted off Sam’s wings and he whipped round to find where the bullet had come from… to see who had shot at Sam.

It was a man, wearing a mask just as the rest of them were, and Bucky saw red.

Up until now the fight had been non-lethal. No-one had been fighting to kill. The Flag Smashers were clearly unwilling to cause severe harm, just as much as Bucky had been, but a gun changed the equation. Bringing out a gun meant that the person meant to kill.

Bucky threw himself at the man, hurling them both off the side of the lorry. Bucky reached out with his metal arm to slow the fall, ripping a large tear down the side of the lorry car, and preventing them both from falling. The man kicked him in the face and Bucky could see that the man was still brandishing that gun. Bucky swapped his arms over, grasping the side of the lorry with his right hand, and used his left to grab the gun and crush it.

He threw the pieces out onto the road speeding beneath them, and the masked man followed shortly after as Bucky grabbed the man by his shoulder and flung him as hard as he could.

He’s a super-soldier, Bucky thought. He’ll survive that.

Bucky took a moment to collect himself, and then readied to return back to the fray that he could hear was still going on above his head. He could hear more shots; this fight was escalating substantially. 

And then something hit him. Hard. Pummelled into him. He lost his grip on the lorry and was thrown back with force.

He was spinning, tumbling over the ground at full speed.

And there was someone with him

He could feel another person’s arms clutching tight around him, the feeling of another body pressed against his as they tumbled through a grassy field.

Bucky grabbed the other person’s shoulders and forced them both to come to a stop, pinning the other man beneath him.

Bucky felt dizzy, and disorientated, and angry, and he pushed down hard, making it impossible for the other person to move, tightening his grip and causing the person to let out a small whelp of pain.

“Shit, Bucky that hurts, stop it.”

Bucky blinked, confused, as that sounded like Sam, but…

The fog in Bucky’s brain slowly began to clear, but it took Bucky several moments to properly take in what had happened and the fact that Sam was indeed the person he was pinning down.

Bucky relaxed his grip, but didn’t move. He was frozen to the spot, brain frantically trying to keep up and make sense of what had happened.

He’d almost attacked Sam.

He’d hurt Sam.

Again.

“Get off me, Buck,” he heard Sam say, “you’re heavy as hell.”

Bucky leapt off Sam faster than lightening and collapsed on the ground next to him, his heart beating very fast.

“You all-right there, Buck?” Sam asked cautiously.

Bucky looked over at Sam. Sam appeared completely unbothered by the fact that Bucky had just mistaken him for an enemy and could have caused him serious harm. Or maybe he was just oblivious. Or perhaps he was too gracious to mention it.

Bucky quickly wiped at his eyes, and sat up.

“Those were all super-soldiers, Sam,” he said. “Not aliens… androids or whatever. Super-soldiers.”

“I know,” Sam said gravely.  

Bucky chewed at his bottom lip as Sam attempted to heave himself to his feet and failed, knocked off balance by the weight of the wings.

“Walker…” Bucky said.

“Not now, Bucky,” Sam said wearily. “You can yell at me later; I’m too tired right now for this.”

And Sam did look tired. As Bucky watched Sam adjust his wings and talk to Torres through the communication device in his ear, his eyes took in Sam’s obvious exhaustion. At some point in the fight Sam had been hit – a nasty purple bruise was beginning to spread across his jaw, and his suit had been torn revealing a graze on his chest, and when Sam put weight on his left arm to push himself up he winced as if it hurt.

Bucky took all of this in and it only increased his concern for Sam getting involved with a group of super-soldiers. Sam was not super-human. That bruise would take a while to go away. Any further fights with the super-soldiers could result in much more significant injury. Broken bones, concussion, or worse.

“Stop that,” Sam said.

“Stop what?” Bucky asked.

“That... looking at me like you’re worried I’m about to keel over or something. I’m just tired. I’m fine.”

Bucky looked away, slightly embarrassed that Sam was able to read him so well. He didn’t want Sam to think Bucky thought him incapable. Bucky didn’t think Sam was incapable; he just couldn’t bear the thought of Sam being injured.

“And here I thought I was the old man,” Bucky teased as he leapt sprightly to his feet and held out a hand to help Sam up to his feet.

“Why do you seem so old?” he mocked, quoting Sam’s own words from earlier.

Sam pointedly ignored Bucky’s hand and pulled himself to his feet.

“Sometimes I hate you so much,” Sam said, but there was no malice in his tone and when Bucky made eye contact Sam grinned at him, causing Bucky to smile weakly back at him, still feeling slightly shaken by what had just happened despite his attempts at humour.

They made their way back to the road.

“So Torres had trouble finding a place to land the plane,” Sam told him, “so we’ve got quite a walk ahead of us, I’m afraid.”

Bucky refrained from pointing out that Sam could fly there much quicker as a small part of him was genuinely worried that Sam might do just that and leave him to walk alone.

They walked in silence for a little while. Bucky’s mind was whirling – thoughts about Walker, the shield, the Flag Smashers, the serum, the fight, and hurting Sam. Too much had happened in such a short space of time that he was finding it difficult to properly absorb everything.

“Any ideas about where these super-soldiers might have come from?” Sam asked, interrupting his thought process by bringing in something else for him to think about.

Bucky stared at Sam, his mind whirring harder than ever. He did have ideas. The problem was that these were all things he didn’t want Sam to know about.

When Sam had first told him about the Flag Smashers, Bucky had had an inkling that the serum might be involved, and his mind had automatically gone back to Siberia in the 90s. Back to Howard Stark, and Karpov, and the other Winter Soldiers. Sam knew about all that, or at least would know bits of it due to his involvement with the events of 2016. But there was more that Sam didn’t know about and Bucky had a horrible feeling that all of that may be in some way linked to the serum that was used to create these super-soldiers.

All that stuff he’d told Christina about that had happened in the 90s after the Winter Soldier programme failed. The efforts to breed super-soldiers. The experimentations. The scientists. He really didn’t want Sam to know about that.

And then there was Isaiah Bradley, the super-soldier he’d fought in Vietnam who’d been kept imprisoned and experimented upon as well. There was possibly a connection of some kind there to this serum. But Isaiah was now free and trying to live a life of anonymity and would most certainly not want to be dragged into this mess.

The 90s really hadn’t been a good decade, he thought, as he tried to figure out what on Earth he could say to answer Sam’s question. Probably the worst decade he’d ever experienced. But then… the 70s hadn’t been great either. The 60s was General Markarov and the 50s was Lukin and Fennhoff. The 40s had been awful as well, from the war straight to Siberia. The early millennium years with the Americans were also horrific, with Rumlow and Pierce.

In fact, he realised with a jolt, the only relatively decent period of time in his adult life had been in the 80s. And that was only because he’d spent the entirely of the 80s entombed in his ice coffin because he’d pissed off Ivanov so much by being defective that he’d just been left there for about 13 years. He’d only been brought out in 1991 by Karpov because they were desperate to get the serum and needed him to kill Howard Stark for it.

And that’s why he was certain that this serum had something to do with everything that was going on in the 90s. The renewed efforts to create super-soldiers – Hydra had been desperate, and had spent that decade consumed with the desire to create more obedient enhanced humans, and desperately trying to use the ones they still had access to in order to create more.  

How could he avoid sharing this information with Sam?

“Bucky, are you still with me?”

Bucky looked over at Sam, who was waving a hand in front of his face.

“I can practically see those gears turning,” Sam said, poorly disguising his obvious concern for Bucky with humour.

Bucky shook his head.

“The serum…” he began. And he didn’t know what he was about to tell Sam, but he was fortunately saved from continuing by the sound of a car driving up behind them and a horn beeping at them as a jeep containing Walker and his companion over took them and stopped just ahead of them.

“Looks like we’re working together,” Walker called out as Bucky and Sam came to a halt next to the jeep.

Bucky’s eyes dropped down to see the shield, resting against Walker’s leg and resisted the urge to jump aboard the jeep and grab it. He knew that he wasn’t capable of dealing with Walker right now. Ignoring him, he stepped round the jeep and carried on walking, and Sam followed his lead.

The jeep started up again, over took once more and stopped just in front of them a second time. Bucky tuned Walker’s words out and let Sam engage with him, telling him about the Super Soldiers.

“Shit,” Walker said. “Get in.”

Bucky looked at Sam, his eyes wide and shook his head.

“Don’t get in,” he said quietly. But Sam ignored him, climbing into the back of the jeep to join Walker and the other man. Bucky hesitated for a moment, and then clambered in after him.

Bucky paid no attention to the conversation that was going on around him. The shield was right there.

Just there. He could take it so easily. Grab the shield and take off… somewhere. Where? Who cares where? He could take the shield and he and Sam could go and stop the Flag Smashers and then Sam could be Captain America, as he should be.

Only… he knew Sam wouldn’t be okay with that.

And he knew that would make him a fugitive once again, and he was already going to be in enough trouble as it was without making things worse.

“Does he always stare like that?” he heard Walker say and he pulled himself out of his thoughts, feeling slightly embarrassed, and he wondered just how much time had passed since he and Sam had sat down in the jeep. He hadn’t even noticed that they’d been moving.

“You were out of your depth,” Walker’s companion said, “until we showed up.”

Bucky’s focus moved from the shield to this other man, and fixed the man with a stare so powerful the other man wilted a little bit and Bucky felt ever so slightly triumphant.

“Who are you?” Bucky asked, in a tone that clearly showed that he didn’t actually care and was meant to sound patronising.

And when the other man introduced himself as Lemar Hoskins AKA Battle Star Bucky realised that he really had had enough. He was moments away from knocking these two idiots out and stealing the shield as it was, and all of this wasn’t helping him to contain himself at all.

As he stood up to leave the jeep Walker grabbed his arm.

“Look Bucky,” he said, “I know this wasn’t what you wanted –“

Bucky tore his arm out of Walker’s grip, completely flabbergasted at the gall of this man – only his friends got to call him Bucky – only Sam got to call him that. No-one else. And definitely not Walker.

“You know nothing,” he seethed.

“I know you don’t want to walk all the way back to the airfield,” Walker said, “it’s like twenty miles. It’ll take hours.”

“Yeah I do,” Bucky said, and he jumped off the back of the jeep and stormed off. He had no idea if he was heading in the right direction, but he wasn’t going to stop and try to figure it out while Walker and  fucking Battle Star were right there watching.

He became aware of footsteps rushing up behind him and turned to see that Sam was catching up with him.

“You didn’t need to leave as well,” Bucky said in disbelief. “You don’t want to walk twenty miles.”

“I would prefer flying in a hurricane to spending another second with that man,” Sam said, and he caught Bucky’s eye and grinned. Bucky felt a wave of relief rush over him to hear that Sam also shared his dislike for Walker and, feeling gratified, he returned Sam’s smile.

“And anyway,” Sam said casually, “I’m supposed to be supervising you, right?  I’d be a pretty poor supervisor if I left you wandering around alone in a foreign country. I'd be fired.”

Bucky let out a laugh. Even feeling the way he did right now – after all that had happened, Sam was still able to make him laugh. And he felt touched, really touched, that Sam would choose to walk back with him, rather than return to the plane by a quicker route.

“Look,” Sam said, and now he was serious, “if you’re determined to be involved in this –“

“- I am,” Bucky interrupted.

“All-right,” Sam said. “But I need to know that firstly, you’re actually allowed to do this and that we do things properly. And also…” he hesitated, as if uncertain about whether to continue, “I think we need to discuss the elephant in the room.”

“What elephant?” Bucky asked obtusely, although he was well aware of what Sam was talking about. The elephant in the room was all the things that Sam felt they needed to talk about. But he played dumb because the last thing he wanted was to speak about all of that.

Sam took a short sharp intake of breath.

“If we are to work together on this,” he said after some further thought, “then we need to talk, properly, about what happened the last time we met. We need to clear the air, get it all out into the open, so it doesn’t cause any problems later.”

“What happened?” Bucky asked, continuing to play dumb.

“Bucky,” Sam said, now clearly irritated and losing his patience, “you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Stop being deliberately dense. I’ll spell it out for you shall I? You’ve been ignoring me for a very long time because when we last met you…”

“Don’t,” Bucky quickly interrupted Sam once again. He didn’t want to hear Sam say any of this. He didn’t want to think about the embarrassment he’d felt back when he’d made the mistake of kissing Sam, and Sam’s response to him. He didn’t want the reminder of all that had gone wrong between them, and the things that it had led to.

“There’s nothing for us to talk about,” Bucky said. “All that happened was… what happened… I… I misread the situation and you humiliated me. End of story.”

Sam looked disappointed, and Bucky quickly avoided his gaze because he didn’t want to see Sam’s frustration with him. He was starting to feel annoyed with Sam for pushing at this. Surely it was far better to just pretend that nothing ever happened?  

“That’s not what happened, Buck,” Sam said quietly.

 “We are not talking about this,” Bucky said with emphasis. “We don’t need to talk about this. What we actually need to talk about is the super-soldiers and the serum. That’s all. We have a situation here that we need to sort out.”

“And then what?” Sam asked.

“We go back to how it was,” Bucky said, continuing to deliberately avoid making eye contact with Sam and speeding up so they were no longer walking side by side.

“Perfect!” Sam retorted angrily, “Just great. Never speaking to you again? I look forward to it.”

 

Chapter 27: Reunion: Part Three

Notes:

Okay, we're getting on to the racial themes now in this chapter. Like I said before, I don't want to gloss over any of this, because I believe it's all incredibly important for Sam and his journey and also for Bucky in helping to understand Sam's motivations that underlie his choices. At the same time I'm just very aware that I am writing about things that are beyond my own experience that I may not understand properly - not an issue I generally have with writing Bucky - and I'm aware I might get things wrong. I've done a lot of reading about the themes in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and read oodles of discussions about racism and 'Black Lives Matter' and the experience of Black people in America, and I've educated myself a lot. So I hope it's okay, but I am open to constructive criticism.

On a related note I am kind of retconning something in this chapter that I had set up in one of the prequel one shots (My Lack of Control). I need to go back and edit that story as I was setting up a small side-plot (of a kind) which I now no longer want to do. I had it in my mind that it might be an interesting bit of added drama if Sam never knew Steve wanted to give him the shield, instead Sam had the mistaken idea that Steve wanted it to be given to Bucky. I thought the idea of this misunderstanding might be a good little bit of conflict between the two which would need to be resolved (and it was intended to be resolved in this chapter). But I did so much reading about Sam since I came up with this story, that I realised how important it is for Sam to have that moment with Steve when Steve gave him the shield, and I'd taken that away from him. This isn't the first time I've abandoned a small minor plot line I was setting up, but this is the first time I'll need to go back and rewrite something, so I thought I needed to mention it because there is currently a continuity error which I will sort out at a later date. In my mind now, what happened when Steve died, is that both Sam and Bucky got a chance to get some final words with him. And both Sam and Bucky know exactly what Steve's intentions were for the shield.

Reunion: Part Three

 

It was evening by the time they made it back to the plane. It hadn’t been a very enjoyable walk. After their brief and tense interaction they’d walked in a silence only broken by Sam occasionally talking to Torres through his ear piece.

Bucky knew he’d messed up somehow, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand why Sam could possibly want to dredge up all that embarrassing unpleasantness. He felt sulky and annoyed; angry at Sam for bringing it up, angry at himself for failing to give Sam what he wanted. They’d reached an understanding. Everything had almost returned back to how it was. They were being friendly with each other, joking around; talking about working together and Sam had had to ruin it by insisting that they talk about how Bucky had behaved when they were last together. 

But what did Sam want? Bucky couldn’t work it out. Sam had been clear at the time that he wasn’t interested, that nothing was ever going to happen between them. Bucky was too emotionally vulnerable – the phrase still made him cringe whenever he thought about it. Why on Earth would he want to engage in more conversation with Sam which would result in him feeling further humiliation and yet more rejection? What purpose could that possibly serve?

When the plane took off Sam joined Torres and his co-pilot in the cockpit without even sparing Bucky a glance. Bucky heard Sam giving them a debrief. 

“Captain America? Really?” Bucky heard Torres exclaim excitedly. Bucky winced at the reminder of John Walker.

Maybe he should have just stayed in Brooklyn, he mused despondently. Then he’d never have met Walker or Battle Star. He’d never have seen the shield in the hands of completely the wrong person. And he wouldn’t be here right now agonising over his relationship – friendship? Associates? Colleagues? Potentially more? – with Sam.

Sam’s laughter drifting from the cockpit shook Bucky out of his reverie and he sat himself down on some crates in the centre of the plane and waited, continuing to hear Sam as he joked with Torres and the other guy.

Sam eventually re-joined Bucky in the back of the plane. He’d taken off his wings and Falcon Suit. Without a word Sam sunk down on one of the benches lining the sides of the plane, bundled up a sweater under his head and closed his eyes.

As Sam’s breathing slowed and deepened Bucky returned to his thoughts, thinking about all the mistakes he’d made when it came to Sam and the shield.

It’s my curse, he thought, to never be able to make good decisions.

Every choice he made, everything he’d ever done had always led to something bad happening. When would he ever learn not to make decisions? He couldn’t be trusted with choices. He needed direction from other people. Freedom and free will were wasted on him.

Bucky was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear Sam saying his name. He didn’t notice Sam was trying to get his attention until Sam tossed his ear piece over towards him. Bucky, on instinct, reached out and caught it before it made contact and looked up, confused, finally pulled from his thoughts.

“There you are,” Sam said. “I’ve been talking to myself for ages.”

Bucky hadn’t noticed Sam had woken up and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He could see it was pitch black outside, but at some point Sam had switched the lights on so they were able to see each other. He was sitting up now and staring across at Bucky with an expectant look on his face. Bucky realised that Sam must have asked him a question, and he wracked his brain to see if he could recall what Sam had said, but he’d been too lost in his own mind and not paying attention.

“You’re staring again,” Sam said.

Bucky looked down at his feet, feeling slightly embarrassed by Sam’s reference to his strange disassociations. He’d thought they were more under control – he’d not experienced them for quite a while now. And now, since he’d met up with Sam and got himself involved with all of this, they were starting to happen with an alarming frequency. That’s three times there’d been comments on his staring, he thought. Or was it four? Walker had made some comment earlier because he’d spaced out on the jeep.

Christina had told him that his disassociation was linked to trauma and could be triggered by things that reminded him of traumatic events. It therefore made sense that his episodes had returned given everything that had happened that day and all the memories the day had brought back to the surface. The super-soldiers, the serum, things that happened in the 90s, John Walker, the shield and Steve. And even though he understood why his brain was doing this to him, he still felt frustrated and annoyed with himself because of it.

“You should get some sleep,” Sam suggested. “It’s been a long day, even for you. You must be tired.”

And oh god Sam’s kindness could have broken Bucky’s heart. No matter what Bucky said or did Sam was always so nice.

Bucky shook his head. There was no way he was going to sleep here and risk having a nightmare in front of Sam with Torres and the co-pilot there to witness as well.

“I’m thinking,” Bucky said.

“Do you have nightmares when you sleep?” Sam asked him candidly.

Bucky didn’t bother asking how Sam would know about this. He knew Sam had counselled traumatised veterans, and he’d learned enough from his therapist to know that nightmares were a common symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress.

Bucky settled on making a non-committal noise, in order to avoid answering the question.

“I do sometimes,” Sam said casually. “Things from the past that hurt… they can often come back when we’re sleeping.”

Bucky could see what Sam was doing; offering up his own experience as a way to help Bucky feel more at ease about sharing his in return.  This was an olive branch – to find common ground and to reopen a positive dialogue between the two of them. He was also letting Bucky know that it was okay, and that he wouldn’t judge. He wondered what it was Sam might have nightmares about. Was it Riley – when he got exploded out of the sky? Or did Sam, like Bucky, have nightmares about Steve? Perhaps he had nightmares about the blip. Not so much being gone, but what it had been like coming back to a world that had moved on for five years without him. Or perhaps he had nightmares from his time in the military.

But for all the curiosity Bucky had, he really did not want to engage in this conversation. Bucky’s nightmares were so full of blood and death and horror, along with a whole myriad of experiences that he never wanted Sam to know about. He turned his head away, clearly signalling to Sam that he was not engaging in this conversation.

“Well,” Sam said, after letting out a small sigh, “I hope you’re thinking so hard because you’re trying to come up with a solution to our problem?”

“What problem?” Bucky asked, his mind jumping immediately to the shield and the problem of Walker, even though he had a feeling that wasn’t what Sam was referring to.

“What problem?” Sam echoed in disbelief. “Oh, I don’t know,” he continued, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “perhaps the ever so minor issue of the eight super-soldiers we have to deal with.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. He’d almost completely forgotten about that. His mind had been so focused on the situation with Sam, and with Walker and the shield that the super-soldiers had been pushed aside.

“No,” he answered, he reached his hand up to his dog tags and twiddled idly with the chain. “No, I wasn’t thinking about that.”

Sam felt silent, and Bucky felt his mind drift off again as he continued to fiddle with his tags.

“The shield…” he began, after a long silence.

Sam threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “This again?” he exclaimed.

“Let’s take it,” Bucky quickly continued, raising his voice so he could speak over Sam’s objections. “We should just take it. You should have it. They can’t make us give it back. And then it’ll be over, and you can use it if we get into another fight. It will help us deal with the Super-Soldiers.”

Sam stared at him, and there was something in his gaze that made Bucky feel uncomfortable. Sadness, perhaps? Pity?

“We can’t just run up on the guy, beat him up and take the shield,” Sam said patiently. “We are not stealing the shield, do you remember what happened the last time we stole that shield?”

Bucky frowned, not entirely sure what Sam was referring to.

“We never stole the shield,” he said uncertainly to Sam.

“Yes, we did, when Sharon took it and my wings from the task force in Germany in 2016,” Sam explained. “Look, I know you remember this. Sharon was branded an enemy of the state and Steve and I, and the others, were on the run for two years.”

“Well yes, I remember that,” said Bucky, still feeling confused. “But you weren’t on the run for stealing the shield, you were on the run because…” Bucky hesitated and fiddled more with his dog tags as he tried to piece together what he could remember from 2016. The Accords he thought. That was part of it, right? And what had happened to Sokovia. And Steve’s steadfast loyalty to Bucky, refusing to give him up to the authorities who wanted him dead.

“You know,” Bucky continued, “I’m not entirely sure exactly what was going on in 2016 to be honest. There was a lot happening in a very short space of time and I’m still not sure Steve explained things to me properly.”

He remembered a conversation he’d had with Steve in Wakanda, during one of his rare visits.

I thought you’d bring Sam with you Bucky had said He’s quite a character. I rather enjoyed his company when I woke up. Bit over bearing. He thinks he’s funnier than he is.

 

He remembered feeling almost disappointed that Steve had come alone. Not because he’d not wanted to see Steve, of course he had, but Steve had always been so fervent - so passionate - in his defence of Bucky that it had made him feel uncomfortable. Steve always asked him about his memories, and Bucky could tell that every time he said he couldn’t remember anything before 1946 it made Steve die a little bit inside. And then there was Steve’s own guilt.

The Day before you fell from the train Steve once said, We had an argument. And I could see you weren’t okay. I could see there was something wrong and I let you walk away. I thought we still had time. Time to sort things out. And then I messed up. And you came in to save me, as you always did, and I did nothing but watch you fall. And then I left you there. Left you to seventy years of….

Sam was different. Every conversation with Steve was like a minefield and left Bucky feeling like a failure. That he was continuing to let Steve down and only adding to Steve’s stresses and worries. There was none of that with Sam.

But Steve had often come alone. Because Sam and his other friends were all on the run after Steve had rescued them from the Raft.

I dealt with everything, Steve said. Everything’s fine

Apart from the fact that you’re all on the run, Bucky said because you all helped me

There’s more reasons than that Steve told him It’s a complicated situation

 

And Steve had never really got the chance to properly explain to Bucky the wider context of everything that had happened or led up to the events of 2016. One of the many conversations he and Steve would never have.

“Well,” Sam started to explain, but Bucky raised a hand and shook his head.

“I really can’t be bothered, Sam,” he said, “I don’t care about all that mess. And anyway it’s all irrelevant because we never stole the shield. It never belonged to the government in the first place. Howard made it, and he gave it to Steve.”

And Steve gave it to you he wanted to say.

“Even if it didn’t belong to the government then, it does now,” Sam said. “So we would be stealing it if we took it now.”

“Because you gave it away,” Bucky said pointedly.

“Because I gave it away,” Sam repeated slowly.

Bucky stared at Sam in astonishment. Sam showed no remorse or regret for his decision. He was simply matter of fact.

“Why don’t you care?” he asked Sam. He remembered seeing Sam at the Smithsonian, waving jovially at the crowd, laughing and joking on his way to tossing out Steve’s legacy in the trash.

“What, you think it didn’t break my heart to see them wheel him out up there on the television?” Sam said. “And again today seeing him in action with the shield? I care. Very much. This was not what I intended to happen. But it has happened, and we have to accept it. There’s nothing we can do.”

There followed a tense and awkward silence. It was frustrating how little they were on the same page when it came to this. Sam may very well be broken-hearted, as he said, about Walker having the shield, but he was so damn passive about it. Where was the anger? Where was the feeling of injustice? Where was the drive to put things right?

“Look,” Sam said, “about Walker… I don’t like him either, okay? But if we’re going to be able to deal with the Flag Smashers properly, we going to have to consider meeting Walker half-way and helping each other.”

Bucky’s head shot up. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “Walker’s a useless tool. He’s got no idea what he’s getting into. He’s got no idea what to do next.”

“And neither do we,” Sam pointed out. “We’ll be in good company. Come on, let’s face it Bucky, we’ve got nothing.”

“Firstly,” Bucky said, leaning back on the crates and staring down at Sam, “I would rather walk through fire than team up with that man in any way – and secondly, I know exactly where we need to go next.”

“Really?” Sam asked, “Where’s that?”

Bucky paused, his felt his heartbeat pick up speed as he teetered on the edge of telling Sam something he’d never intended to share with anyone.

Isaiah Bradley.

He’d been thinking about the man a lot since they’d discovered the Flag Smashers were enhanced, wondering if it would end up being necessary to speak to the man, to find out what information, if any, he could share with them which might help them figure out where this serum came from. He was certain that Isaiah Bradley had to be the next step in their journey, but it just felt wrong to bring this to Isaiah’s door. And not only that, it would mean having to share some details with Sam about his Winter Soldier days – something he was similarly reluctant to do.

He got up slowly and walked over to sit next to Sam, who appeared slightly taken aback by the serious expression on Bucky’s face.

“There’s someone I think you need to meet,” Bucky said enigmatically, and quickly, avoiding Sam’s eyes completely.

“Okay,” Sam responded immediately. “Who?”

Bucky chewed on his bottom lip anxiously as he considered what to say next. “I don’t want to say just yet,” he said, “because I might change my mind. But I’ll tell you where we need to go.”

Sam updated Torres on where they were headed, and then returned to sit next to Bucky, who was mentally questioning his own poor decision making abilities. Was it right to involve Isaiah? What if Bucky was completely wrong about where the serum might have originated from and he involved the other man for no reason?

“Are you going to tell me any more about this person we’re going to meet?” Sam asked.

“No,” said Bucky shortly. And then, unable to stop himself: “Are you going to tell me why you threw Steve’s legacy away as if it were worth nothing?”

He regretted the words as soon as he said them. He knew he’d been pushing Sam hard about the shield and his decision to give it up, and he could tell straight away, from the look on Sam’s face, that Sam’s patience for this had reached its end.

“How dare you?” Sam’s tone was ice cold. “You have no idea the agony I have been in for months about the shield, about Steve, about whether I was making the right decision.” His voice grew louder as he spoke.

“Then why?” Bucky pressed. “If it was so hard, why go through with it?”

“I can’t possibly begin to explain to you the very complicated reasons why I felt I could not take on the weight of that shield,” Sam said.

“That’s not good enough,” Bucky shot back. “I don’t accept that.”

 “Well you have to,” Sam said clearly and decisively. “You don’t have to like it, but you need to accept that this is what has happened, and it was my decision to make. And I’m not apologising for it.”

“It should have been you,” Bucky said frantically. “Steve wanted it to be you. It needs to be you, because you’re a hero and a good person. You’re like Steve.”

Out of the corner of his eye Bucky noticed Sam’s jaw tighten, his brows furrow slightly, and his fingers twitched in his lap, as if he were preventing them from curling into fists. Bucky paused momentarily, unsure why making that comparison would elicit this response. Sam seemed unhappy, angry even at hearing that he was like Steve.

Why? Did he not think it was true?

“But Walker,” Bucky continued, “he’s not. He’s a soldier through and through. He’s a killer.” Bucky was keenly aware that his descriptions of Walker could well apply to Bucky himself. “He’s the perfect soldier,” he said scathingly. “Steve wasn’t. He wasn’t chosen because he was a soldier. He was chosen because he was a good man. He was a hero before all of that. Before Captain America. Before the serum.”

He noticed Sam sit up a little straighter as Bucky moved on to talk about Steve and his face softened as he listened. Bucky felt another wave of regret that he’d never spoken to Sam about this before, maybe it would have helped avoid the situation they were in right now.

“Steve always did what he thought was the right thing,” Bucky carried on earnestly, “not what people wanted him to do. Even back when he was tiny, and ill. He was always fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. Any time he saw injustice he hurled himself against it, even though he’d probably lose. And he did lose. Often. He’d let himself get beaten to a pulp rather than stand by and let someone else suffer.”

Sam continued to stare at him, looking completed transfixed. This gave Bucky the confidence to continue, that this was the right thing to say.

“I asked him once, when we were young,” Bucky continued, “why he always had to involve himself in other people’s troubles and he said… he said…” he tripped up on his words because saying these things, talking about Steve out loud which was not something he did very often, if at all, was starting to make him feel emotional. There was a tightness in his chest, and he had to swallow in order to carry on, but he pressed on because Sam was listening avidly, remaining silent, barely even breathing as if he was worried that making even the tiniest noise might make Bucky stop speaking.

“He said,” Bucky finally managed to continue, “he couldn’t just stand by and watch people do bad things to those who don’t deserve it. Inaction is just as bad” he quoted Steve’s own words from almost a hundred years ago, “he said bad people do bad things but if I let them do it,” he quoted again, remembering Steve’s determined face, his fiery passion, his stubborn self-righteousness shining through making him seem far older than he’d been, “then it means I’m not a good person anymore.”

Out of nowhere, and for some strange reason, Christina’s voice suddenly shot into his mind.

You are not responsible for the actions of others or the choices they choose to make

You didn’t let anyone do anything

And he faltered slightly; wondering if that meant Steve had been wrong. Christina had spoken about beliefs he had formed from childhood and how it affected how he saw himself today – could that be an example? Or had she been wrong? Did it even matter?

He couldn’t focus on this right now, Sam was still staring at him, drinking in every word, and he needed to finish, to impress upon Sam the importance of what he was saying, to drive his point home.

“He inspired people,” Bucky said. “He made people believe that anyone could be a hero. He’d come from nothing and he never hid that. He was never ashamed of where he came from, he was proud of it. Because he knew what it meant to people, to see that if someone like him could become Captain America then anyone could become anything.”

I think people should know what I was like before the serum, where I came from. I’m not ashamed of who I was Steve had said, in the bar in England when he recruited the Howling Commandos.

“Steve was a 5ft 1 asthmatic who’d spent the 30s dying of every illness under the sun, and look what he became. People don’t understand that. They think they can just give the shield to a tough soldier who follows orders and kills people and they have a replacement, but that’s not enough. If it was enough then I would have taken it.”

Suddenly he felt exhausted. His tirade over, he flopped back against the side of the plane breathing as hard as if he’d run a marathon.

“Steve inspired people,” Bucky repeated. “I thought you could inspire people. I still think that,” he finished quietly.

“So could you,” Sam said. And to Bucky’s surprise Sam was serious. Was Sam really suggesting that there was any world in which Bucky himself could be worthy of carrying on Steve’s legacy? He’d never been worthy, not even before he was the Winter Soldier, and he certainly wasn’t worthy now. If that was holding Sam back, then he needed to dissuade him of the notion, and quickly.

“Oh Sam,” Bucky said desperately, turning his head to look Sam directly in the eyes. “Look at me” he implored, “really look. I’m a mess. I’m not in a position to be inspiring anyone. Even if you take away my history as the Winter Soldier and all the people I murdered – I drink too much, I smoke heavily, I take drugs, I freak out constantly, I frequently self-harm, I have an absolutely horrendous eating disorder and I’ve been in therapy for months and made no progress whatsoever. I'm a complete and utter nutcase and I'm a heartbeat away from being trundled off to the madhouse. I am so far away from being inspiring.”

Silence fell between them after his passionate outburst and he stared down at the floor, ashamed, his vision blurring, trying to hide from Sam how close he was to tears. His words hung in the air between them and he regretted them so much now. He’d not wanted to say so much to Sam. He’d just wanted to help Sam see how right he was to carry on Steve’s legacy, and how wrong Bucky was for it. But he’d not wanted to reveal to Sam, not wanted Sam to know, how broken he still was. If there’d been even the slimmest chance before of there being anything more between the two of them, it was entirely gone now. His vision swam and he closed his eyes, feeling dampness inside his lids, hoping that the barrier would keep the tears from falling.

 “Buck,” Sam said quietly, sounding stunned and at a complete loss for words.

“Go back to sleep Sam,” Bucky said shortly, getting to his feet before putting as much distance between himself and Sam as was possible on the plane, so that he could sort out his tears and compose himself without Sam seeing. To his relief, Sam did not follow or try to pursue the conversation. Eventually Sam lay back down, but Bucky could tell he was not sleeping. Bucky, of course, didn’t sleep either. 

 

Bucky decided the next day to act as if their conversation on the plane had never happened. As he and Sam made their way to the home of Isaiah Bradley that awkward silence that had been present the day before in Germany had returned. Every time Sam cleared his throat, or started to speak, it made Bucky tense up, worried that Sam might make mention of something he’d said.

Fortunately, it seemed that Sam had no intention of bringing up anything Bucky had said the night before. It was better that way; it meant they could both focus on the task at hand and avoid any unpleasantness which might cause problems between them and affect their ability to work together. Bucky felt he should view Sam as a colleague, a kind of co-worker. Someone he had to put up with in order to do his job properly. And then when it was all over, they could part ways, and never have to deal with each other again. He could shove down all the feelings of embarrassment and humiliation and guilt and regret, knowing that in a short time Sam would be out of his life for good.

And as they turned up a pathway into the neighbourhood where Isaiah had made his home, Bucky was finally able to switch his brain away from thinking about Sam. It suddenly hit him, as they drew ever closer to their destination, that in a few short moments they’d be speaking to Isaiah and he had no idea what on Earth he would say to the other man.

He slowed his walk as they approached a bend. Isaiah’s house was just up ahead. This wasn’t the first time he’d walked these streets. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d stood outside Isaiah’s home watching and waiting.

Behind him, he could hear Sam chatting to some kids. He was lightly admonishing them for calling him ‘Black Falcon’ instead of ‘Falcon’. Bucky could tell the distinction was important, it implied that there was a default ‘Falcon’ (likely white) and a ‘Black Falcon’ as a deviation of the norm. Like using the term ‘lady doctor’ or ‘women police officer’ carried with it the assumption that doctors and police officers are usually male, with women being an anomaly and having to be pointed out with a label.

He stared across the road at Isaiah’s house and waited for Sam to finish. It was time to tell Sam something about Isaiah.

“That’s where we’re going?” Sam asked, following Bucky’s eye line to the house across the road.

Bucky nodded.

“And is there any point at which you tell me anything about the man we’re going to see?” Sam prompted.

Bucky swallowed. Time to relive some more unpleasant memories.

“The man who lives there,” he said, gesturing to the house, “is called Isaiah Bradley. He is someone who I had a…” he paused to try to find an appropriate word to describe their volatile meeting about fifty years ago, “…uh an interaction with in 1971.”

He could see Sam’s face turn serious as his mind made the connection that this was someone who Bucky had had involvement with as the Winter Soldier.

“By interaction you mean what?” Sam asked delicately.

“Well,” Bucky said, with a dark chuckle, “he ripped my arm off and beat me half to death with it.” He gave Sam a small smile but he knew it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Right,” Sam said, as if this was a normal every day conversation about the weather. “So, this is someone who likely may not be very happy to see you.”

“I think he will want to talk,” Bucky said thoughtfully. “I think he will be curious about me. And he… he’s had a difficult time, but I believe he will have information which will help us.”

A difficult time was an understatement, and barely scratched the surface in explaining to Sam about what Isaiah had gone through, but now was not the time for lengthy explanations. The time for that would have been yesterday on the plane, or during the walk here. But they were here now and it was time to press on.

A teenage boy answered the door and needed some persuading to let them in. As he led them into the house to meet Isaiah, Bucky tried unsuccessfully to stop the flow of memories from rushing through his head. He could do without spacing out right now. He needed to focus.

And there was Isaiah. He looked old, but healthy and fit. There was a look of resignation on his features, as if he’d always expected this day would come.

“Sam,” Bucky said, avoiding Isaiah’s gaze, “this is Isaiah. We met in the Vietnam War, in ’71.”

“You mean I whupped your ass,” Isaiah said.

Bucky nodded and looked across at Sam, who was looking confused.

“One by one everyone they sent after him ended up dead,” Isaiah was addressing Sam now, but Bucky could feel his eyes boring holes into him “then they sent me to deal with him. I ripped that metal arm off him, but I can see its grown back.”

Bucky looked down at his left arm and then finally, raised his eyes to meet Isaiah’s and as their eyes met Bucky couldn’t help but think about their fight.

Isaiah had been meant to kill the Winter Soldier, and he’d had the opportunity but he’d not done so. Their fight had been brutal. Violent. Bloody. And short. Bucky remembered he’d been caught off guard. He’d not expected to face a super-soldier and he’d been complacent, assuming this one would be as easy to dispatch as all the others had been. And his complacency had almost killed him, if not for Isaiah’s mercy.

I don't want to kill you, Isaiah had said, pinning him down. His metal arm had been ripped to shreds and discarded, and his other arm trapped underneath him. Don't make me kill you. I’d rather bring you in alive. I'm not a killer.

And the Soldier had heard English, and so he’d replied in English and, in his shock, Isaiah had released his grip.

Who are you? Bucky could still remember the shock in the other man’s tone.

There’s no Russian alive who speaks English with an accent like that. You’re American

Isaiah’s shock had given the Winter Soldier an opening, and he’d then got the upper hand. Forcefully beating off Isaiah and then fleeing, leaving the other man for dead.

Bucky couldn’t remember what had happened after that. But this was during General Markarov’s tenure as the Winter Soldier’s Handler, he could well imagine the cruel General’s response to the Winter Soldier returning beaten and bloody, near death, and missing the priceless metal arm.

 

Bucky forced himself back to the present. Sam and Isaiah were talking and he’d missed a lot of the conversation. Sam was looking horrified by whatever it was Isaiah had been telling him.

“Look Isaiah,” Bucky said, trying to direct the conversation so they could leave as quickly as possible. “Someone’s making serum. There’s more of us out there and we need to know…”

“More of us?!” Isaiah repeated, and he was furious. Really furious.

“Isaiah,” Sam said, trying to calm the other man, but Isaiah would not be placated. He wasn’t shouting, but his words were forceful and powerful.

“They locked me up for decades,” Isaiah said. “Your people” he directed scathingly at Bucky who forced himself not to react to Isaiah’s words. “Your people, and my own government. They made me fight. They used me. They threatened my family. They took my blood. They killed my friends trying to make them into more of us!” He threw Bucky’s own words at him with such distaste that it made him flinch.

“And here I am, hiding. Pretending to be dead,” Isaiah’s voice rose, and now he was shouting. “Because I’m still not safe, and nor is my family, my grandson. But look at you!”

Out of the corner of his eye Bucky saw Sam’s eyes flicker over to him.

Bucky swallowed, knowing that Isaiah was justified in directing his anger towards him. Bucky had never felt he deserved his freedom, had never felt worthy of all the leniency that had been afforded him. And Isaiah was a man who was truly innocent, who had suffered through no fault of his own, and yet would not ever be shown a fraction of the clemency that had been so easily given to Bucky.

You know as well as I do, Bucky remembered Brock Rumlow telling him, that you shouldn’t be a free man, and yet you are. And why do you think that is?

Because he was Steve’s brother. Because once upon a time he’d been a young American war hero who people had admired.

And, more importantly for Isaiah, Bucky had been a white young American war hero. A key distinction. Bucky was no fool. He knew Isaiah’s story. And it was a story that would have played out very differently if he’d been a white man. He’d been a hero, once acting in very much the same way as Steve had done when rescuing Bucky from Krausberg. But unlike Steve, who’d been given accolades and medals and applauded for his heroism, Isaiah had been locked up and experimented upon.

Isaiah threw them out. Bucky didn’t protest. Sam appeared reluctant to leave. No doubt he had more questions he wanted to ask, but it wasn’t right to stay any longer.

They should never have come here, Bucky thought, as he followed Sam out of the house. Isaiah should have been left alone. This hadn’t been right.

Bucky could tell Sam was angry as Isaiah’s grandson shut the door firmly behind them, and he expected Sam to be angry. But what he hadn’t expected was for Sam’s anger to be directed at Bucky himself.

Once they were out of sight of Isaiah’s house, Sam rounded on Bucky.

“How could you never have told me that there was a black super-soldier decades ago!?”

Bucky blinked, surprised by Sam’s fury, and shook his head, at a loss for words.

“Did Steve know?” Sam demanded.

“What?” Bucky said, still completely baffled. “No… how would… how would Steve know?”

“How long have you remembered about Isaiah?” Sam asked, moving to block Bucky’s path and making him stop.

“I don’t… when I was in Wakanda, perhaps?” Bucky suggested.

Sam’s eyes flashed.

“You knew all this time, and you said nothing,” Sam said. It wasn’t a question.

“Why would I?” Bucky asked, “You saw him, you heard him. He wants to be left alone. He doesn’t want people to know about him.”

“You had no right!” Sam said. “You had no right to keep something like this secret. You don’t… You don’t know…” Sam groaned and held his head in his hands. Sam wasn’t shouting. Sam rarely shouted, even when he was angry. His fury was always so contained, so controlled. “You can’t keep this to yourself. You have no idea the implications… you can’t possibly understand.”

 “What do you mean I don’t understand?” Bucky asked, his own voice rising, frustrated and baffled by Sam’s explosive emotional response. Unlike Sam, Bucky did not have the ability to keep his voice calm and steady when he was angry, and his voice grew louder and louder as he continued: “I understand perfectly. You’re the one who doesn’t have a goddam clue! I know exactly what it’s like to have the worst moments of your life on display for anyone and everyone to see. And Isaiah doesn’t want that. He doesn’t need…”

Bucky’s own angry diatribe was cut off, interrupted by a police siren from behind them. Two officers got out of the car as a second police car pulled up behind them.

Just great, Bucky thought. This was just what they needed. Infuriating busy-bodies poking their noses in when it wasn’t needed and causing them delay. He rolled his eyes at Sam who, to his surprise, wasn’t looking mildly irritated, but instead was looking tense, and anxious. Sam’s eyes were fixed on the police officers, watching them intently as they got out of the car, and he looked more than a little wary. Bucky felt initially confused by Sam’s response. But as the officers ran towards them, with raised voices, and defensive body language, responding completely disproportionately and unnecessarily for the situation, the reasons for Sam’s anxiety quickly became apparent.

Because while Bucky had been the one shouting, it was Sam who the officers were focused on. It was Sam who they ran up to, gesturing with their hands for him to calm down; it was Sam who they barked orders at; It was Sam who they addressed so rudely.

And what did they say to Bucky?

Is this man bothering you? While gesturing towards Sam.

And while Sam remained calm and pleasant, though clearly agitated, as he tried to keep things from escalating, as a crowd of locals gathered around them to observe, Bucky could feel his own temper rising. He felt outraged – no that wasn’t strong enough – he felt furious on Sam’s behalf.

Chapter 28: Reunion: Part Four

Reunion: part Four

 

 

Bucky was trying to help. He had good intentions, but the road to Hell and all that.

So when he asked Sam to just show his ID so they could quickly move on, and when he, frustrated, snapped at the officers - “don’t you know who this is!?” - he genuinely thought he was helping in some way. But from the wounded look that Sam gave him, Bucky could tell that he was doing something wrong and this perplexed him. He felt like he was letting Sam down, but he couldn’t tell what he was doing wrong.

Surely the best thing would be to just co-operate, do as the police say, and let this situation come to an end as soon as possible? But there was Sam, standing his ground, refusing to even entertain the idea of following the police’s orders. Bucky became aware that some of the onlookers had their phones out, held up in their direction, presumably recording and this was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. He could tell that the officers were feeling uncomfortable too, and intimidated – his eyes followed the lead officer’s hand as it moved to rest on his gun holster. This situation was seconds away from spiralling completely out of control and he didn’t have the first idea how to calm this down, as everything he’d been trying to do already was clearly wrong.

And then one of the officers from the second car came rushing over and whispered something to the other two.

“Avengers,” Bucky heard him say.

And then immediately the atmosphere changed. The man’s hand lifted off the gun holster, and a wide grin spread across his face, as he immediately started questioning Sam about being Falcon and asking if he could get a photo for his nephew.

Sam didn’t look relieved. He looked pensive and irritated, as he brushed off the cop’s questions. The onlookers started to disperse now all the drama was clearly over, as one of the other officers now addressed Bucky.

“Mr Barnes, is it?” he asked.

Bucky nodded, hardly paying the man any attention as his eyes were still fixed on Sam.  

The man visibly winced. “I’m really sorry, Mr Barnes,” he said apologetically, “but I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”

Surprised, Bucky dragged his eyes away from Sam. “What?” he asked.

“I’m afraid there’s a warrant out for your arrest,” the officer said, still sounding sorry about it, “all units across the country have been asked to bring you in if we see you.”

Time stood still for a long moment as the words found meaning in Bucky’s brain.

A warrant for his arrest?

As his heartbeat thudded louder and louder in his chest, he wracked his brain to try to understand what was going on.

It was the same dreadful feeling he’d felt back in Romania in 2016, that cold numb horror that had enveloped him as he’d read in the newspaper that he’d been responsible for blowing up the Vienna International Centre in an attack on the UN, without any memory of actually doing so. Because, of course, he’d been framed by Helmut Zemo. But at the time he’d been momentarily convinced that he might have actually done it.

But back then there’d been the real possibility that he could have done it – he’d still been under the power of the trigger words, he’d still been experiencing significant memory loss and, on occasion, he’d had moments where he’d lost time. But none of that was the case now.

“Why?” he asked, finding his voice which to his horror actually shook a little bit. “What have I done?”

“You missed your Court mandated therapy,” the officer explained.

And suddenly blessed relief flooded through him.

Oh thank God, he thought, it was just therapy.

“Oh, God,” he suddenly said, realising what that meant. “It’s Wednesday. I forgot…”

But Christina was supposed to ring him when he was late. She wasn’t supposed to report him to the authorities straight away. Why hadn’t she tried to call?

Bucky suddenly remembered that he didn’t have his phone with him. He’d broken it after speaking to Sam on Monday evening, and then he’d been so focused the next day with meeting Sam and getting himself involved with all the Flag Smasher, John Walker shit; that Christina, his phone, and his therapy had all gone completely out of his head.

He’d not been taking his pills either. He’d left them at home.

He held out his hands on autopilot for the handcuffs


                 – ridiculous, but might as well play along

and allowed himself to be directed into the back of the police car. The man kept apologising to him, and it was frustrating because he was pretty certain that if Sam were the one being arrested they wouldn’t have been quite so polite about it.

Christina probably had tried to ring him, he mused, as he heard Sam outside the car asking the officers where they were taking him. She’d probably tried for ages before calling this in. She was probably worried about him and all this time he’d been gallivanting around in Germany with Sam and getting into fights.

He sighed and rested his forehead against the car window as it drove off. Christina was going to have an opinion about this. She always did.

He was driven to a local police station and bundled into a cell which, to his surprise, contained two other men. And he was left there for hours.

Up until now he’d thought everyone in the world was afraid of him. But the cops knew exactly who he was, and yet they’d been so polite, and apologetic, on top of putting him in a holding cell with other people in it without showing any concern for their safety. This confused him. At some point someone asked him if he wanted to call someone, but he declined. Christina would find out soon enough that he was here; Sam would have called her immediately. He just needed to wait and eventually something would happen.

It was late by the time he was led out of the cell and taken through to collect his possessions that had been confiscated upon his arrival – his dog tags, his wallet, keys. He’d not had anything else. They’d let him keep his gloves and jacket on so at least he’d not been sitting in the holding cell with his metal arm and hand on display.

He looked around the waiting area as he waited for his things. He felt gratified to see that Sam was there, that Sam had waited for him rather than moving on without him. Sam was talking to Christina, a sight that made him a little uneasy but Christina had given him her word once that she’d never talk to Sam about anything therapy related and he believed her. The thought of Sam knowing even just a fraction of the things he’d spoken about in therapy made him feel sick. It was bad enough that Bucky had lost his head completely during his outburst last night and revealed far too much to Sam.  

And then all thoughts of Christina and Sam left his mind as his eyes rested on John Walker, and Lemar Battle Star Hoskins standing a short way over from Sam and Christina. There was a sight that could make his blood run cold: Walker, Hoskins, Sam and Christina all in the same room and talking to each other.

Christina noticed him before the others did and immediately stepped forward to meet him.

“Come on,” she said, “we need to talk. They’ve got a room for us.”

Bucky ignored her, his eyes fixed on Walker who looked far too happy.

“Now,” Christina said.

Walker raised a hand.

“Great to catch up, Christina,” he called loudly, a smug smile on his face. Bucky frowned, letting himself be led by Christina into a small interview room, before reacting to the implication of Walker’s words.

“Do you know him?” he asked her incredulously as she sat down on one side of the table and gestured to him to sit as well.

She didn’t ask who he was referring to; it was obvious from the context.

“Yes,” she replied. Bucky gaped at her, astonished.

“How?” he asked suspiciously. “You’re not friends are you?”

“No,” she replied. “We’ve worked together, a long time ago.”

“Like in the army?” Bucky guessed. “Or like… like…” he gestured between her and him, “like this. Like you and me?”

“You know I won’t answer that,” she replied. In Bucky’s mind this confirmed his suspicions that she knew Walker in her capacity as a therapist. If they’d been in the army together surely she’d just have told him that? No reason to keep that secret.

“He’s an arsehole,” Bucky said.

Christina smiled wanly, not looking the slightest bit amused.

“What are you doing here, James?” she asked him.

Bucky finally sat down. She was going to do her ‘naughty child’ routine then, chastising him.

“You’re the one who got me here,” he muttered.

“Where’s your phone?” she asked him. “I tried calling you, repeatedly.”

“It broke,” Bucky said quietly. “I haven’t replaced it yet. And I haven’t done anything wrong; Sam was supervising me. It’s allowed. I just lost track of time.”

Christina appraised him thoughtfully before continuing.

“One moment you’re telling me that you’re never talking to Sam again,” she said, “and then suddenly he’s ringing me telling me that you both went to Germany and got in a fight with some dangerous vigilantes.”

“I didn’t actually do much fighting,” Bucky said quickly. “I was a bit useless really. Ask Sam, he’ll tell you. It didn’t last long and I didn’t kill or hurt – well, seriously hurt – anyone.”

He expected Christina to look disappointed again. He expected her to sigh, to adopt that tone that made him feel like a naughty child, to say his name with that air of heavy resignation that he’d got so used to over their months together.

But she did none of those things. Instead, he found himself completely caught off guard as she changed tack completely.

“Have you talked to Sam?” she asked.

He was so thrown by this question appearing completely out of nowhere while he was in the middle of a dressing down, that it took a moment for his brain to catch up.

“Of course I’ve talked to Sam,” Bucky said, knowing full well that she wasn’t referring to general conversation and friendly chit-chat, but more that she was trying to work out if they’d spoken about the incident.

“What about?” she asked, clearly not in the mood to be fobbed off.

“I don’t know,” Bucky raised his hands in exasperation. “We spoke about the shield, and Walker, and the Flag Smashers, and what we’re planning on doing next.”

“That’s not what I was asking,” Christina said patiently. “Have you talked to Sam about what happened between the two of you? Or your feelings about him?”

Bucky felt stunned. She clearly wasn’t holding back. And where was she getting this from? He’d never told Christina he had feelings for Sam. He never had feelings for Sam, or well, if he did, they were gone now. They were gone ages ago.

Keep telling yourself that he told himself, and maybe it’ll come true

“What feelings?” Bucky asked, being deliberately obtuse.

“You’re telling me that you don’t have feelings for Sam,” she said.

Bucky licked his lips, uncertain of how to respond. He couldn’t say no. That would be an outright lie to a direct question. He decided to go the evasive route.

“Oh yes, of course, you’re right,” he said. “I do have feelings for Sam.”

From the look on her face he could tell that she knew there was more to come.               

“Feelings of annoyance,” he elaborated, “frustration. Oh, and anger.”

Christina, clearly realising that this was not a path to push down, abandoned that line of enquiry completely.

“Oh well,” she said. “I imagine that as time passes conversation will organically take place. You’ll be spending a lot of time together, so there’ll be plenty of opportunities to talk. That is… if you are determined to remain involved with the Flag Smasher situation.”

Bucky stared at her in shock, but this time for different reasons. She was implying... no, confirming… that he would be working with Sam; that he was allowed to continue on this path he’d accidentally put himself on yesterday morning. He’d thought it would be harder to persuade her.

“It’s…” he stumbled over his words, too surprised to be able to articulate clearly. “That’s… ok?... I mean I thought… that’s allowed?”

Christina pursed her lips. Bucky knew her well enough by now to know what that meant.

She disapproved.

She didn’t think he should be involved, but someone had pulled rank over her.

“I’m going to be frank, James,” she said, “I don’t believe you’re ready for this. Not nearly ready. And if it was my decision I wouldn’t allow it. I’ve tried for hours to explain my position but...”

She shook her head and fell silent. She actually looked upset. This was surprising to Bucky because she generally had a better hold on her emotions than this.

“The people I report to,” she said after a long pause, “they want to see how you manage this. They trust Sam and Walker to supervise you and report back if there are any issues.”

“I’m not working with Walker,” Bucky interjected.

“You might find you have to,” she said grimly, “he’s the one who’s pushed hard for this.”

Bucky felt even more shocked. He couldn’t believe he’d made any kind of good impression upon the new Captain America, nor had he tried to. What game was Walker playing at? And if Walker was the reason he was allowed to be involved with the Flag Smashers, maybe he shouldn’t be.

“James, you don’t have to be involved,” she said. “No-one is telling you to be. You can walk away.”

“No I can’t,” he said. “These are super-soldiers, Christina. Someone’s made serum. How can I ignore that? Sam can’t… and Walker as well… they can’t deal with this without me. This is beyond their skills and capabilities. Sam could get himself killed if I don’t help. And…”

He cut himself off from continuing to say that he felt in quite a large way responsible for this. The conversation with Isaiah, as short as it was, had confirmed his suspicions beyond any doubt that the appearance of these super-soldiers was linked to all the mess he’d been involved with in the 90s. The murder of Howard Stark, the experimentations on Bucky himself, the experimentations on Isaiah before he’d managed to escape.

“… and I don’t give a crap what happens to Walker,” he finished instead.

“I can’t influence you on this,” Christina said. “This has to be your decision. But I want you to think really carefully before involving yourself. You told me that this wasn’t what you wanted, do you remember? You told me you don’t want to carry out work for the government, you told me you didn’t want to be involved in things like this again.”

He remembered those conversations.

They want a Super Soldier, like Steve. To replace him. I did that already, in the war and for Hydra. They think I should do it all again. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want any of this.

I want to be free of the weight of people’s expectations of me

They’re worried I’ll snap and kill someone. They’re worried their little project will fail and they won’t have their pet super soldier anymore.

But this situation wasn’t like that. No-one was telling him he had to get involved. In fact, Sam had tried to stop him. This was his own choice, and for once he felt like he was making the right one. Because he had the experience, the knowledge, and the strength – how could he do anything other than get involved?

Christina was looking at him, still with that sad look on her face. Bucky realised with a jolt that she was genuinely experiencing emotion over this; that her concern for him wasn’t just because it was her job, but because she actually really cared. This thought hit him over the head like a sledgehammer – this little chink in her usually rock solid professional façade revealed so much and it made him feel emotional from the thought that here was one of the very few people who genuinely cared about his well-being.

 

Finally, Christina got her emotions under control and snapped back into stern, professional, therapist mode – a little overkill but she was clearly trying to compensate for letting herself reveal too much of her feelings.

“We are putting in ground rules,” Christina said sternly. “No unnecessary fighting is a big one. If you must get into fights, they are to be non-lethal, and for self-defence only. You are to follow Sam’s lead at all times. Or John Walker’s,” she raised a hand as Bucky was about to cut across her to say that he was never going to do a damn thing Walker told him to do, “And you will contact me every three days. A phone call. An email. Or a text. And you will ring me if there are any issues. Any day, any time.”

She fixed him with a resolute stare.

“You agree?”

“Of course,” Bucky said hurriedly, wanting to reassure her.

“And also, James, this is really important – if I tell you to stop and come back, you are to do so, no complaints, no arguing. Immediately. Do you understand?”

Bucky quickly assented again.

“I know that you feel personally connected to this. I understand why you feel this way,” she said. “But for me, that’s part of the problem. You’re too close to all of this, and there’s so much more I feel we should get to explore together before you step a toe further into this situation, but I also know there’s no talking you round once you’ve set your mind to something.”

That was certainly true, and for a moment Bucky considered listening to her. How many times had he moaned before about Christina being one hundred percent right about something that he’d just brushed aside? Would this be something he’d later regret getting involved in?

He decided it didn’t matter. He’d regret not getting involved more if his absence meant something bad happening to Sam.

“When this situation is resolved,” she said, “we’ll return back to our thrice weekly sessions. I imagine they’ll be needed.”

Bucky felt his eye twitch. He knew Christina was coming from a place of care, but this dooming and glooming was starting to get on his nerves.

She released him a few moments later after running through some more ‘ground rules’, bade him to ‘take care’ and reminded him to get a phone sorted out so he could remain in contact. To his relief she didn’t even ask him about his medication. She was slipping up.

He hovered for a moment in the doorway, not wanting to just walk away, feeling like there should be something more to say to her. Even though the promise – or threat – of returning to their usual thrice weekly sessions remained, something felt very final about this; simply leaving without even a backward glance seemed woefully inadequate.

He tapped his fingers on the doorframe.

“See you soon,” he said, and he walked out. That felt incredibly unsatisfying but it would have to do. It wasn’t like he was never going to see or speak to her again. He was willing to bet that she wouldn’t even wait three days for him to call her, she’d probably be checking up on him constantly.

It was dark outside. He found Sam outside the police station, talking to John Walker and Lemar Hoskins – why the fuck were they still here?  - He unwillingly joined Sam, hoping that this would prompt Sam to wrap up this conversation quickly. He learned that the girl, the youngest looking Flag Smasher, was actually the leader, and her name was Karli Morgenthau.

As he listened, his mind was busy already working out their next course of action – something he felt sure Sam would disapprove of – and he was trying to work out how best to persuade Sam to go along with his plan, and also how to prevent Walker from joining them.

Sam had so much more tact than Bucky did. He managed to expertly navigate the conversation with Walker, remaining polite and friendly, but firmly explaining to Walker and Lemar just why he and Bucky would be working alone.

“We’re free agents,” Sam explained, and there was no arguing against that, up to a point. Bucky of course had Christina hanging over him, but he and Sam remained freer to do things their own way than Walker and Lemar did.

Not for the first time Bucky found himself admiring Sam’s diplomatic abilities. Bucky had never had such skills. During the war he’d always been rubbing senior officers up the wrong way because he could never help but speak his mind. He’d been kicked out of a war meeting once for launching into a tirade against a British General who’d made a snide comment about Steve. One of the reasons Colonel Phillips had disliked Bucky so immensely from the offset was because he viewed Bucky as insubordinate, and rude.

Bucky remembered meeting with Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter and Steve shortly after he and Steve  had returned back from Krausberg. Phillips had been pushing him hard, trying to get him to talk about what had happened during his captivity in the Hydra munitions factory. He’d even implied that Bucky might have turned traitor because he’d survived for so long in the Isolation Ward when everyone else had died after a couple of days. There Bucky had been, standing before the Colonel and Agent Carter, exhausted, drained, and covered with burns, scars, cuts and bruises that the crazy German scientist had inflicted upon him, and accused of treachery. Steve had of course leapt to his defence but Bucky had quickly had enough and he’d snapped, storming out of the tent daring Colonel Phillips to stop him from leaving.

“Oh, this is Bullshit,” he’d shouted.

The irony of the two of them accusing him of treachery! When it probably wasn’t that long after that very meeting the two of them were reaching out to Zola, colluding with him about how to turn rebellious and insolent Sergeant Barnes into a nice compliant, controllable super-soldier.

He’d also been quite disrespectful to Colonel Phillips after the Colonel had caught him and Howard returning the car they’d ‘borrowed’ for Howard’s illicit quest to recover some of his diagrams that had been confiscated from him.

You don’t take Orders from Stark! The Colonel had barked at him

I don’t take them from you either, Bucky had replied, I take my Orders from Captain Rogers

No wonder the Colonel had disliked him immensely.

He felt that Sam would have managed both those situations with far more diplomacy and tact.

Bucky was thinking about this as they finally walked away from Walker and Lemar.

“How do you manage it?” he asked Sam curiously. “How do you manage to stay so calm and in control with Walker, and when you were with the cops earlier? Why don’t you ever seem… angry?”

“I was angry,” Sam said. “I was angry at the cops. I’m angry at Walker. And god, I was furious with you earlier today.”

That was about Isaiah Bradley, Bucky thought. So Sam had genuinely been cross with him about that. He still didn’t know why.

“But while I feel angry, I don’t get to actually be angry, if you see what I mean,” Sam said. "I don't get that luxury."

It took Bucky a moment of thought, thinking back over the day’s events, before he realised that he did know what Sam meant. He was remembering the cops earlier. They’d jumped to conclusions, launched themselves at Sam even though Bucky had been the one shouting. There’s a word for that, he thought. Racial profiling. He remembered Sam remaining calm and polite throughout the interaction, even though he was clearly agitated. If Sam lost control the way Bucky often did, if Sam gave voice to his anger and let it be seen by the world, how would the world react to him?

For certain Sam wouldn’t have had police officers apologising to him as they gently guided him into the back of a police car, taking care not to bump his head on the door frame.

How exhausting, he thought, to never really feel able to let go and release all those emotions. How often had he thought about how Sam rarely raised his voice, how Sam’s fury always seemed so contained? It was because it had to be.

Bucky didn’t know what to say to Sam about this. This was so outside of his own experience that he wasn’t sure there was anything he could say without screwing up somehow.

“Never mind,” Sam said as Bucky remained silent, “I don’t expect you to get it.”

Sam let out a long sigh and Bucky felt once again, as he had earlier, that he was letting Sam down.

“Well,” Sam said, snapping into a more cheerful mood, and clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, “hasn’t this been quite the reunion? And to think just yesterday morning I was thinking that my life wasn’t crazy enough and I needed a bit more excitement.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Bucky said, feeling slightly heartened himself now that Sam appeared to be in better spirits.

“I’m not sure how good of an idea it was to ditch Walker and Lemar,” Sam said. “We have no leads, and no plans for what we should do next.”

“What are you talking about?” Bucky asked. “Weren’t you listening to Isaiah? He told us everything we needed to know.”

“And what was that?” Sam asked.

Bucky looked around, keenly aware that Walker and Lemar were only a short distance away, and with it being so dark out anyone could be in earshot and hidden in the shadows.

“Not here,” he said, “the walls have ears. Come with me.”

He led Sam through some dark back streets. They needed somewhere private where they could talk properly. But first there was something he needed…

He led Sam into a 24 hour convenience store and ordered some cigarettes from the man behind the counter.

“Are you kidding me?” Sam exclaimed. “I thought something serious was going on, the way you were acting all shadowy and mysterious.”

Bucky shrugged.

“You’re not smoking those around me,” Sam instructed as they walked out. “I can’t stand it. You’ll have to wait.”

“No problem,” Bucky said, keen not to cause Sam any further aggravation. Because somehow, and god only knew how, he was going to have to persuade Sam that they would have to return to Germany. That they would not only need to speak to Helmut Zemo, the Sokovian who had framed him for blowing up the UN ceremony in 2016 and then later taken control of him, but that they could quite possibly need to break him out of prison as well.

Getting Sam to agree to this course of action was not going to be an easy task.

“So,” Sam said, as Bucky lingered outside the store thinking about where they could find somewhere to talk at this late hour, “seeing as you seem to know everything – what’s the plan now then?”

 

Notes:

I saw a video on youtube, I'm afraid I can't remember what it was called, but it was a breakdown of the scenes in this episode of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' - the cop scene and the couples therapy scene - and the video talked about Sam's control over his anger, how different Sam's displays of emotions are from Bucky's, and how for many black people in the US, showing anger can result in quite serious ramifications. So that is what prompted the conversation in this chapter about Sam's anger and how he expresses himself.

Also, as much as I found the couples therapy scene really fun in the show and I did enjoy it, it really is not good therapy, and there was no way I could have included it when trying to write Dr Raynor as a competent therapist. So instead of Sam being there with them in therapy, I had them talk about him a bit instead.

Chapter 29: The Wrong Things

Notes:

I’m changing some things about the serum and where it originated from. I wanted Bucky to be more directly tied to the creation of this serum, but I also didn’t want to undermine Isaiah’s story – so I’ve linked their experiences together. When (or if) I ever finish writing the prequel there will be a lot more about what happened in this time; what we get in this chapter is a flawed summary – impacted by Bucky’s poor memory of events as well as his reluctance to say too much to Sam about it.

Content warning – there is a very very brief reference to the experimentation that Bucky experienced in the 90s- regarding the scientists making an attempt to ‘breed’ super-soldiers from him. It’s a blink and you miss it kind of moment but it is there.

The Wrong Things

 

Bucky decided that the best course of action was to find a place where they could stay for the night. This would allow him and Sam to have somewhere private where they could talk without being overheard, and also give them a chance to rest. Bucky could also see that Sam looked dead on his feet. Sam had slept very little on the plane the night before, and there’d been two days with a lot happening. They could pause for a moment, discuss their next plan of action, rest up and then in the morning Bucky would need to return to Brooklyn to prepare for the next stage in their journey. He’d need his medication, and he needed to sort out his phone before he could move on. Sam could get Torres organised with the plane in the meantime and then he and Sam would be ready to depart to Germany – if he could get Sam to agree to this.

He was mulling all this over in his mind as he and Sam traversed the floors of the first hotel they’d discovered which had a room immediately available for them. It was problematic, he realised, because he couldn’t just tell Sam that they needed to go to Germany to speak to Helmut Zemo – Sam would want to know why. He would want an explanation, and the only way of getting an explanation would be to reveal far more to Sam than he had ever wanted Sam to know about.

He followed Sam into the hotel room, making sure that the door was properly closed behind him.

Sam surveyed the room and then cocked an eyebrow at him, looking amused.

“You got just the one room, right?” he asked.

“Yeah…” Bucky replied, looking around the room also, trying to work out what the issue was.

“One bed?” Sam pointed out, waving an arm at the large double bed. “You expect us to share?”

Bucky felt his face flare up instantly, and he hurriedly bent down to take off his shoes in the hope that Sam wouldn’t notice. Sometimes he really loathed how expressive he was, how his feelings displayed so openly on his face for everyone to see. It had always been that way. His friends used to love playing poker with him.

He kicked his shoes off and looked back at Sam, who was waiting expectantly for a response, one eyebrow raised, and looking like he was enjoying Bucky’s embarrassment immensely.

“It’s for you,” Bucky explained quickly, still feeling hot in the face and avoiding Sam’s eyes. “I won’t be sleeping.”

Sam’s smile dropped, and he frowned. Bucky wasn’t keen to receive a lecture about how he too ought to get some sleep, so he quickly continued.

“I will be using the shower though,” he said, “I feel gross.”

He’d not had the opportunity to clean himself up at all since he’d left the house on Tuesday morning. Since then he’d gone to Germany and back, got into a fight, and spent the day in a police station. He felt greasy and scruffy and in dire need of a good hot shower.

Sam held out his hand. Bucky stared at it.

“What?” he asked.

“Give me your cigarettes,” Sam said sternly.

Bucky stared at Sam like he’d grown two heads, but then it hit him why Sam was making this demand.

“I’m not going to smoke in the shower Sam,” Bucky said incredulously, although to be honest the thought had crossed his mind, given that Sam had laid down strict no-smoking rules in his presence.

“No you’re not,” Sam said, his tone still light and non-confrontational, but firm enough to show Bucky that he would brook no argument to this, “because I’m taking them from you.”

Honestly, Bucky thought. It was like he was a naughty toddler being chastised by a tired parent. He heaved a great sigh and shoved his unopened pack of cigarettes into Sam’s waiting hands.

“Go ahead,” Sam said, gesturing towards the bathroom. As Bucky passive aggressively slammed the bathroom door behind him Sam called through the closed door.

“I’m ordering room service,” Sam said, “I’m starving. You’re paying. Do you want anything?”

“No,” Bucky replied shortly, and he turned on the shower.

After showering, and feeling a little more human again, Bucky pulled his clothes back on and eyed himself critically in the mirror. His hair, wet from being in the shower, was looking too long. Not overly so, and he doubted it was very noticeable when dry, but it was noticeably growing out. He tried to remember when he’d last got his hair cut. He made a mental note to get this organised. He had a morbid fear of looking into the mirror one day and seeing the Winter Soldier staring blankly back out at him. The image rose in his mind making him shudder and he quickly looked away from the mirror and picked up his jacket and gloves. He was about to leave the room but then he hesitated, his eyes going back to the mirror again and resting on the black and gold of his metal arm in his reflection. He was still wearing the shirt he’d ripped the arm off earlier, so there was nothing covering the arm now he wasn’t wearing his jacket or gloves. And he didn’t have any spare clothes.

Suddenly he felt self-conscious.  He knew it was silly, but he didn’t want to leave the room with his metal arm on display for Sam to see. Usually he kept the arm covered at all times because he didn’t want people to see it. He didn’t even want to see it most of the time, preferring to keep it covered even when he was alone at home. And he balked now at the thought of just lounging about with Sam with his arm just there.

He knew he didn’t need to feel this way - Sam knew perfectly well that Bucky had a metal arm, and why Bucky had a metal arm. Bucky had had his arm uncovered the entire time they were in Germany and it hadn’t bothered him then that Sam would see it. But they were on a mission, they’d been fighting. In that context having his metal arm out made sense. But right now, in this context with Sam, he felt awkward and insecure about it.

After a few more moments of internal dispute with himself, he settled for pulling on the jacket and leaving his gloves off. The arm would therefore be covered but his hands would be exposed. That seemed like a reasonable compromise and Sam wouldn’t then feel the need to ask Bucky why he wasn’t taking his gloves off.

When he finally re-emerged he found Sam sitting up on the bed, watching TV and eating the food that had arrived while Bucky was in the shower.

“There’s enough for both of us,” Sam said casually, “in case you change your mind.”

Bucky sat down on the end of the bed and Sam chucked a bottle of water in his direction.

“Okay then,” Sam said, turning off the TV. “You said you know what we need to do next. Let’s talk.”

Bucky played for time by opening the water bottle and taking a long swig.

“Isaiah talked about his experiences when he was imprisoned,” Bucky said. “Do you remember what he said? He said your people and my own government. He said they experimented on him, to make more of us.”

Bucky paused, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry despite the water he’d just drunk.

“He was talking about Hydra,” Bucky explained. “That’s what he meant when he said your people. They were my…” he faltered. He hated to even think about his connection to Hydra, let alone say it out loud.

“You think this is Hydra now?” Sam asked, “Because they experimented on Isaiah in the past?”

“Not exactly,” Bucky said. “A remnant perhaps, an offshoot, but connected.”

“It’s a bit of a tenuous leap,” Sam pointed out. “There’s not much there for us to go on.”

Bucky sighed. He’d known Sam would need more information. It was going to be a hard sell to persuade Sam that from Isaiah making an obscure Hydra reference that this meant going to break out a notorious and dangerous criminal who had been single-handedly responsible for the deaths of many UN members, including the King of Wakanda.

Bucky stretched himself horizontally out on the end of the bed, his feet hanging off the end as he prepared himself to talk about a subject which would involve digging into one of the worst periods of his life. But it was necessary, as he knew Sam needed to understand more about the serum. Where it came from, the efforts people went through to recreate it, and also how Isaiah Bradley fit into it all.

A history lesson then, Bucky decided. So that Sam would be able to make the same connections in his mind that Bucky did.

“What do you know about the origin of the Super-Soldier serum?” he asked, eliciting a look of surprise from Sam at the sudden change of direction in their conversation.

“Well,” Sam said, thinking about it, “it was a man named Dr Erskine who created the serum and it was his serum that was given to Steve, during the war. I know that.”

“Steve wasn’t the first recipient though was he?” Bucky said. “You’ve heard about the Red Skull?”

“Of course,” Sam said. “It’s what we all learned about in school. The serum made his face melt off.” Sam pulled a face, “Thank God that didn’t happen to Steve.”

Bucky let out a small smile.

“The serum that Red Skull took was also created by Dr Erskine,” Bucky explained. “It was an earlier version, unperfected. When Erskine came to the States he modified it and that’s what Steve got. But Erskine never worked on it alone.” Bucky hesitated, reluctant to go any further, but knowing that he needed to regardless.

“He worked on it with a man called Dr Arnim Zola,” Bucky said, forcing out the name through gritted teeth, “even before the war started they were working together on developing serum. And Zola… well, he was at Krausberg.”

“I know about Zola,” Sam piped up, causing Bucky to sit up in surprise.

“How?” Bucky asked, perplexed. No-one had known about Zola being at Krausberg, no-one had known about the nature of the man’s experiments on Bucky.

Sam looked puzzled. “I think Steve mentioned him,” he said. “I mean… wasn’t that the man you were apprehending when…” Sam broke off suddenly.

When I fell from the train Bucky silently completed the sentence for him.

“Well,” Bucky said, still feeling slightly confused, but deciding it wasn’t worth pushing right now, “that’s when I got the serum. In Krausberg. But it wasn’t activated until much later. Not until the early 1950s. The thing about the serum that you need to know Sam… it’s always problematic. It always goes wrong. It’s not just the Red Skull losing his face, there’s more than that. Everyone who takes the serum ends up mad, bad or dead – usually all three. They experimented on over a hundred soldiers in Krausberg and the serum only worked on one. Everyone else died.”

The Isolation Ward he thought. Where the prisoners would be taken once they were too weak and sick to continue working in the factory. Everyone who went in there had died after a couple of days, at the hands of Dr Zola, everyone apart from Bucky. 

“And this continued for decades,” Bucky said. “You’ve got to understand that creating more super-soldiers was an obsession. And not just for Hydra. Isaiah was imprisoned and experimented upon at the hands of the US government as well as Hydra. All those organisations like SHIELD were all infiltrated by Hydra. Do you remember those Super Soldiers that Steve and I found in Siberia in 2016?”

Sam nodded.

“Howard Stark made that serum,” Bucky said. “That’s what led to his death. And that serum was developed through the experimentations that Isaiah told us about and I’m pretty certain…”

Sam suddenly laid a hand on Bucky’s arm, causing Bucky to fall silent and sit up, taking in Sam’s ashen face.

“Did Howard Stark know about Isaiah Bradley?” Sam asked, his voice taking on a harsh cold tone that Bucky had never heard before.

Bucky hesitated. As much as Howard had been his friend and his guilt over killing the man made him want to defend him, he knew that it was very likely that Howard had had knowledge of Isaiah Bradley.

He’s got enough smarts and resources to figure it out – that’s what Peggy Carter had said about Howard being able to track down the origin of any samples from a super-soldier. You Leave Stark out of it unless we get another source.

“Probably,” Bucky said carefully, taking in Sam’s growing expression of horror as the implications of this took root. “I think a great many people knew about Isaiah Bradley and were complicit in his imprisonment and treatment.”

He twisted the blanket in his hands nervously. Now was the time to move on to the more personal subject matter.

“But that serum didn’t work,” Sam said, filling in Bucky’s nervous silence. “Steve told me what happened to those super-soldiers in Siberia. So how does this link to the flag-smashers? How does any of this tell us what we need to do next?”

“It’s not that the serum didn’t work,” Bucky said. “The serum did exactly what it was supposed to. It enhanced what was already within. Those super-soldiers in Siberia – they were Hydra’s elite. They were dangerous highly skilled men and women with a twisted morality and the serum just built on that. Of course they ended up being uncontrollable.”

Bucky could remember those super-soldiers. He’d been in that cell for hours and hours, forced to fight them again and again and again until eventually he’d been overwhelmed and beaten. And they, driven by blood lust, fury and adrenaline had risen up and attacked everyone around them. He’d helped to contain them, and they’d been frozen to be dealt with at a later date. And then they’d been forgotten about until their ignoble deaths in 2016 at the hands of Zemo.

“But they still wanted to create super-soldiers,” Bucky said, “and Isaiah had escaped by that point, so they continued the experimentations on the only super-soldier they had left.”

All those scientists that had been brought in to work on him – they’d been American scientists, scientists who’d worked with a super-soldier before. He’d been told to obey their every instruction and so he had – compliantly and docilely allowing them to take his blood, his saliva, urine, bone marrow, semen – anything that might help to create new super-soldiers by any means necessary. Throwing anything at the wall and seeing what might stick.

He felt his face turn red again as he remembered what they’d done to him. He really hoped that Sam wouldn’t push for more detail about this – he was trying to be as vague as possible, in the hope that he would be able to share enough information with Sam without going into the specifics. He’d only ever spoken about this time once, with Christina, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was nowhere near ready to talk about this with Sam.

“The only super-soldier they had left,” Sam repeated slowly. “That would be you, wouldn’t it?”

Bucky twisted the blanket harder in his fists, feeling the material rip as he did so.

“What did they…?” Sam began to ask, but then he caught himself. He shook his head.

“You don’t need to answer that,” Sam then said, to Bucky’s great relief and he relaxed his grip on the blanket.

“And that’s where this fits in with the Flag Smashers,” Bucky said, relieved to be able to carry on without providing any further detail. “I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’d be willing to bet that the serum that was given to them was made by one or more of the scientists that were working on it back in the 90s. It would have to be someone who had access to samples, and research notes, and the catalogue of failures. And there have been no other successful super-soldiers since that time, and Hydra moved on to Project Insight and stopped trying.”

He knew he must be right. This all felt connected, it had to be. From the moment Sam had first mentioned the Flag Smashers to him before they’d even left for Germany he’d known that this was linked to Isaiah Bradley and the scientists who’d experimented on both of them back in the 90s.

“Do you know who any of those scientists are?” Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head. “If I ever knew their names,” he said, “I have no memory of them.” He couldn’t even remember their faces – just one faceless scientist after another poking him, prodding him, injecting him, barking instructions at him to lie here or stand there or take your clothes off.

“So how does any of this help us?” Sam asked, “If we have no idea who we’re even looking for, let alone where to find them. And you said yourself that you can’t be sure about this. And I doubt that Isaiah will be willing to speak to us again – not about this – and the last thing I want to do is question him.”

Bucky chewed his lower lip as he considered his next words carefully.

“But we do know someone else,” he said slowly, “who knows everything there is to know about Hydra and what they got up to in the 90s. Someone who researched Hydra for years, decrypting and translating those documents you and Steve unleashed upon the world in 2014, someone who made eradicating super-soldiers their life work.”

Bucky could see Sam putting two and two together in his head.

“You’re talking about Zemo,” Sam said.

Bucky nodded.

“You want to sit in a room with that man after what he did to you?” Sam challenged him.

Bucky hesitated. Ideally, it would be great if just sitting in a room and chatting with Zemo was all that would be required to get the information they needed, but he was pragmatic enough to anticipate that Zemo wasn’t likely to just give up his knowledge for nothing. But he was reluctant to tell Sam that he was toying with the idea of getting Zemo out of prison. He had a strong feeling that Sam would not agree to this course of action, and would firmly put his foot down and veto any interaction with Zemo whatsoever. Far better to get to Germany first, speak to Zemo and then do what would need to be done, without Sam’s knowledge if necessary.

So he nodded.

“He’s going to mess with your head,” Sam said. “You do realise that?”

That actually stung.

 “You know the trigger words were removed,” Bucky said unable to prevent the hurt from creeping into his voice as he spoke. “He can’t mess with my head anymore.  No-one can.”

“I don’t mean the trigger words,” Sam said. “I mean in general. He’s a nasty piece of work – he’s clever and manipulative and I’m not sure that it’s the best idea for you to expose yourself to that.”

Bucky rolled heavily off the bed and moved towards the door. He’d told Sam everything he needed to. And now he desperately needed to get outside and chain smoke his entire pack of cigarettes.

“Trust me Sam,” he said, once he’d pulled on his shoes and gloves and opened the door to leave. "I believe that Zemo will have the answers."

He set himself up in the smoking shelter outside the main entrance of the hotel and mentally prepared himself for a long night of waiting. He’d barely got through one cigarette however before he was joined by Sam.

“There is a perfectly good couch in that room,” Sam said. “I think it pulls out into a bed. You can sleep there, you know. Or are you just planning to stand out here all night smoking?”

Sam leant against the wall next to Bucky and looked over at him. It was bright enough from all the lights surrounding the hotel for them to be able to see each other’s faces clearly.

“You must need to sleep sometimes, right?” Sam asked.

 “Rarely,” Bucky said. “I can go a long time without sleeping.”

“I know you can,” Sam said. “But you also told me you can go a long time without eating, and yet yesterday you said you have an eating disorder.”

Bucky winced and avoided Sam’s eyes, once again regretting his revealing outburst on the plane.

“So is it that you don’t need to sleep,” Sam continued, “or you can’t sleep?”

Bucky sighed, and stubbed out the cigarette. He refrained from lighting another one while Sam was with him.

“Both,” he answered simply. 

He leaned back against the wall and turned his head so he was facing Sam, who was leaning against the wall next to him.

“I’m doing better though,” Bucky said quickly. “I know I said I wasn’t, on the plane. But I am, a bit. Christina – Dr Raynor – she’s helping.”

I imagine that as time passes conversation will organically take place Christina had said at the police station.

She’d wanted Sam and him to talk together, just as they were doing now. Not about the serum or the Flag Smashers, but to connect with each other on a deeper level.

There was so much he wanted to say to Sam, he realised.

I miss you laughing at me he wanted to say, I miss your insensitive jokes. I miss how much you make me feel like a normal person and not like someone who is broken beyond repair. I miss how much you make me feel like I matter, and you care. I miss you.

But he just couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to be so open and vulnerable with Sam. Not after what had happened the last time he’d let Sam in.  The rejection, the humiliation.

Emotionally vulnerable

I’d be taking advantage of you

Remembering the words Sam had said that time made his skin crawl.

He couldn’t bear experiencing a repeat of that. Not now. Not when they had to work together for the foreseeable future.

Instead he twisted his hands together anxiously and changed the subject entirely.

“I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing about Isaiah,” he said. “I thought I was doing right by him, keeping him unknown and hidden. I’m sorry if that was wrong. I still don’t really understand why what I did was wrong.”

You have no idea the implications Sam had said passionately that morning. You can’t keep this to yourself.

“I know there’s much I don’t understand,” he continued, “but what I do know is that the world is wider than my experience of it.”

“That’s very profound,” Sam said.

Bucky smiled sadly. “Howard said that to me once,” he said.

Good words to live by I think, he remembered Howard saying, Keeps you open minded, keeps you curious, and keeps you asking questions.

We’re always learning all throughout our lives, and things are always changing. Now more than ever.

There followed a tense silence. Bucky assumed that he’d inadvertently reminded Sam of Howard’s involvement with Isaiah Bradley and he suddenly wished he’d not mentioned Howard. Of course Howard, and anyone else who’d been in any way complicit with Isaiah’s treatment, was utterly deserving of Sam’s ire and Bucky would never challenge that, but his own feelings about Howard were extremely complicated.

“I understand that you thought you were doing the right thing,” Sam said finally. “I can see that your intentions were good.”

Bucky stared across at Sam and tried to see things from Sam’s perspective. He thought about Isaiah, and about the experiences he had had and the way that he had been treated because he was a black man. He thought about what had happened earlier that day and the way Sam had been treated by the police officers. He thought about what Sam had said about not having the luxury of showing his anger.

A new memory suddenly flashed into his mind. Something he’d long forgotten. He and Gabe Jones, one of the Howling Commandos and one of his closest friends, at their favourite pub in England. Jones was Black and he’d faced a lot of discrimination and abuse within the army because of that. On this occasion Jones had been accosted by a group of American soldiers, harassing him and telling him to leave. Bucky had leapt to defend his friend but Jones had stopped him.

Why did you stop me? Bucky had asked him once the pub owner had chased the American soldiers out and given the two of them free drinks.

I don’t need a defender, Jones had said, and violence is not the way to deal with it.

Then what is? Bucky had asked.

Grace and dignity

And suddenly he felt he understood everything, or nearly everything, that Sam felt he could not. While times had changed, there was so much history, so much negative historical context that couldn’t be ignored. And there were too many echoes of that history still prevalent in the present day. Look at what had happened and was still happening to Isaiah Bradley. Look at what had happened only that morning with the police officers.

And when the government had chosen a new Captain American of course they’d chosen the epitome of American perfection – a white, blonde haired blue-eyed patriotic American soldier. The exact same thing had happened during the war when Bucky had been asked to be more involved with the media – Jones himself had said it:

 Dernier, Monty and Morita are too foreign, Dugan is too old and I’m too black. What they want to see is a young pretty white American boy smile for the camera and make the war look exciting and glamorous.

Of course all of this history would impact how Sam would feel about taking on the Shield and the role of Captain American. How could he have been so blind? 

“It’s strange,” Bucky said, “that sometimes it seems like so much has changed since the war, and yet so many things haven’t. The wrong things.”

Sam let out a laugh, immediately diffusing any of the left over tension. “Ah, it’s not all that bad,” he said. “After all, earlier today some cops intervened between a black man and a white man having an argument and it was the white guy that got his arse hauled off to jail. That’s got to count for something, right?”

Bucky knew what Sam was doing. The conversation had become too serious, tense and awkward and Sam was trying to steer it back to safer waters by doing what he always did – resorting to humour and jokes. For all that he appreciated Sam’s efforts to inject a lighter tone into the conversation he felt once again that he’d let Sam down by not quite managing to say the right things, but he didn’t think he could articulate to Sam, didn’t think he could find the right words, to tell Sam that he thought he was actually starting to understand why he felt he had to give up the shield.

“You’re staring again,” Sam touched his shoulder lightly. “What’s going on in that head?”

Bucky turned his body so his shoulder was leaning against the wall and he was facing Sam properly.

“I feel like I’m doing everything wrong,” Bucky said. “I never seem to be able to do the right thing. I can’t make good decisions Sam, I just can’t. Even before Hydra and Siberia I could never do anything right. My life has been a litany of poor decision making ever since I was 14 years old, constantly ending up in one bad situation after another without any real idea of how I got there.”

And he was worried that he was still getting things wrong again. That he’d been wrong about the way he’d managed Isaiah. That he’d made the wrong decision to get involved with the Flag Smashers – Christina’s warning that he wasn’t ready replayed in his mind – and that he was making the wrong decisions now to bring Zemo into this.

“Steve always did the right thing,” Bucky said. “He’d know exactly what to do if he was here.”

A sudden overwhelming feeling of grief and loss flooded through him as he mentioned Steve, the massive swarm of emotions catching him completely off guard.

“I really miss Steve,” Bucky said, and his voice cracked slightly. “I wish he were here.”

Sam nodded, “I know,” he said seriously, looking as dejected as Bucky felt. “Me too. But…”

He licked his lips nervously.

“Look, Steve wasn’t perfect Bucky,” Sam said, “and he’d be the first person to admit that he could get things wrong and make mistakes. Don’t put the man on a pedestal. There was a lot to commend him, of course, but he was still human, after all.”

Bucky fumbled for another cigarette as he considered Sam’s words. He didn’t like to think that Steve could be wrong about anything. Steve had been his rescuer after all. Steve was all he’d had left after his nightmarish years in Hell. Steve had been his friend, his brother, the man he’d trusted entirely, the only one who’d been there for him. The only person who’d known him as Bucky Barnes before the Winter Soldier existed. The only person who’d believed in him. Bucky had never felt deserving of Steve’s belief in him, but that steadfast faith, that never ending loyalty and dedication had meant everything to him.

In Wakanda Bucky had just wanted to give up. Allow the Wakandans to freeze him forever. He’d asked Shuri time and time again to undo all the meddling and programming Hydra had done to his brain so that he could kill himself. But Steve’s faith that Bucky could return to the man he’d once been? At the time that had been enough to keep him going. Steve had done so much for him, and all he could do was return the favour by trying to accomplish exactly what Steve desired so much for him.

But if Steve could be wrong and make mistakes – then what if he’d been wrong about Bucky himself? That Bucky hadn’t been worth saving? That all of Steve’s trust and belief had been completely misguided?

Bucky hummed non-committedly and lit the cigarette.

“You should go to bed Sam,” he said. “It must be the early hours by now and there’s a lot we’ve got to do over the next few days.”

Sam looked like he wanted to say more, but as Bucky had clearly now mentally checked out of the conversation, he decided against it.

“The couch is there if you want it,” Sam reminded Bucky before he left.

Bucky felt a surge of genuine fondness for Sam as he watched Sam return into the hotel, and he had to suppress the urge to call Sam back to continue the conversation. He reminded himself of what Christina had said – that there would be the opportunity to have many more conversations. Right now he needed to focus on the mission at hand. He needed to think about Zemo.

Having just mentioned to Sam about his inability to make good decisions, Bucky entertained briefly the thought that involving Zemo might well end up being yet another example of his spectacularly poor decision making that he would end up regretting. But no matter how hard and how long he thought about it, he couldn’t see any other way forward. Zemo would help them find the person or persons responsible for creating the super-soldier serum, he was sure of it.

And then what?

And then the thought suddenly hit Bucky like a sledge-hammer. He should have realised this sooner, but he’d been so focused on trying to get Sam to agree to his plan while revealing as little as possible that he’d not made the connection. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to him until now that continuing down this path would likely result with him ending up face to face with one of the men who’d abused him so horrifically back in the 90s.

You’re too close to all of this Christina had said and there’s so much I feel we should get to explore together before you step a toe further into this situation.

What if he did end up meeting one of those men?

He had a nasty feeling that he would end up wishing he had listened to her.

 

Chapter 30: Not a Lengthy Drive

Not a Lengthy Drive

 

“You’re telling me now that you want to go in and speak to Zemo alone?” Sam asked incredulously. Bucky grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him over into a corner and gestured to him to lower his voice as some of the other visitors were starting to show an interest in them.

Sam shook Bucky’s arm off. “You kept that quiet,” he hissed. “Waiting until we were here to let me know, after I had already made arrangements and got permission for us to see him.”

Bucky felt bad about this, of course he did. But he knew from what Sam had said a few days ago in the hotel about Zemo messing with his head that Sam would not agree for Bucky to speak to Zemo alone. And so he’d kept quiet about it until the very last moment. Someone would be here in moments to escort them through security and take them through to Zemo’s cell, and there was precious little time to have an argument about it.

“He won’t speak with you there,” Bucky said. “You know he won’t, and it’s not worth the risk us both going in and him refusing to speak. We don’t have long with him and this may be our only chance. You’re an Avenger. He hates Avengers.”

“He might refuse to speak to you as well,” Sam pointed out. “He might view you in the same light.”

Bucky really didn’t think this would be the case. Because of what had happened in 2016, since Zemo said the words and activated the Winter Soldier, there was a connection between the two of them. He knew Zemo would be interested in him. He knew Zemo would want to hear him out. He also knew that if he ended up needing to break Zemo out of prison that he needed to do as much as he could to keep Sam from being associated with that.

“Fine,” Sam muttered, still clearly unhappy about Bucky’s request, “but there’d better not be any more surprises!” he pointed a finger in warning towards Bucky as someone approached them to let them know it was time to go through.

As Bucky followed the prison guard through security, and was checked to ensure he wasn’t carrying anything illicit he considered for the umpteenth time over the last few days what he was planning to say and do with Zemo.

Ideally, he wanted to say just the right thing that would get Zemo to tell him exactly what he needed to know. But the chances of that were small.

He didn’t want to do anything too outrageous either. Bucky had an inkling that, despite the American government’s approval of his involvement in putting down the Flag Smashers, that breaking out an international terrorist from a high-security prison in a foreign country might be vaguely frowned upon. He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything illegal, and he didn’t want to get Sam implicated in that.

Zemo was also imprisoned in Germany which was an added complication. If he were in the States the President could probably pull strings to get Zemo released temporarily in order to help them, but there was no possibility of that here. It had been difficult for Sam to get permission for them to even be here to just speak to Zemo.

There was also the added factor that while Germany was currently one of the countries that allowed him to travel there without fear of arrest for his crimes as the Winter Soldier (assassinations committed in Germany at some point in his history) he ran the risk of Germany revoking that right if he ended up being involved in a prison break.

Breaking Zemo out would create future drama and that was something he (and Sam) could really do without.

So whatever he chose to do to get Zemo involved, he needed to make sure he had plausible deniability. Not an easy feat for someone who couldn’t lie. And that had been the big question over the last few days – how does someone break a man out of prison without breaking them out of prison?

And as many thoughts scattered across his mind, half-baked plans and ideas, the answer came to him. Or he thought it did.

Breaking Zemo out would be easy. No prison could keep Bucky in or out. Even in the Raft he could have left at any time, he’d just simply chosen not too. And it was that thought that had given him the answer.

“You have ten minutes,” the Guard said as they stopped outside a secure, heavy looking metal door. The Guard swiped his card and gestured to Bucky to go in, and then secured the door firmly behind him, leaving Bucky alone in the room with Zemo.

Bucky didn’t even have a moment to step forward, the moment the door slammed behind him an accented voice began to speak.

“Zhelanyie…”

The accent and pronunciation was still atrocious. He remembered noticing that before – when Zemo had been masquerading as a psychiatrist in order to get close enough to Bucky to use the words. Bad pronunciations had never made a difference though – the Americans; Brock Rumlow, Alexander Pierce and the others, they’d mangled the language terribly as well, but it always seemed to work.

Bucky closed his eyes briefly as Zemo made his way through three of the triggers words, trying to focus his mind on the first time he’d heard the words without them having an effect on him. Back in Wakanda, with Ayo – the Dora Milaje who’d supported him throughout the process. No-one else had been with them. Shuri had suggested they wait until Steve’s next visit, offering to send him a message telling him to come, but Bucky hadn’t wanted Steve there. He couldn’t bear the thought that it might fail, and so he’d declined – choosing instead to test his freedom with just Ayo present.

He imagined himself back there, by the fire in the woods, recalling how he’d felt when the realisation had set in that the words no longer had power over him. He’d not believed it at first. Letting the silence after the words had been spoken hang in the air between them as he’d waited for his brain to turn traitor and fall back into that mind-set that had been his life for seventy years.

And it hadn’t happened. The words were spoken and they did nothing. It was Ayo who gave voice to what that meant as Bucky had been too terrified, too dumbfounded to say anything.

“You are free,” she’d said. And it finally hit him then the significance of what had just happened. It was over. Never again would someone force their will on him through the utterance of 10 words. The words were now meaningless. He would never go back.

The power of the relief he felt – it flooded through him like a tidal wave. This was Freedom. And he’d cried from the weight of the emotion, unable to keep it locked up within.

 

He’d expected something like this to happen – he’d assumed Zemo would try the words on him again, he’d just not expected it to happen immediately and he was unprepared for it. So he focused on the feelings he’d felt when Ayo had declared his freedom and this helped him to ground himself, and take reclaim some control over the situation.

Zemo stopped after the fifth words, clearing noting Bucky’s lack of response. The last time he’d said the words Bucky had been screaming in fury, launching himself at the door of his clear cage desperate to get out and silence him.

Now Zemo was the one locked inside a cage. And the words didn’t work. He must have expected that, Bucky thought. He couldn’t genuinely have believed Bucky would come alone, into the presence of someone who knew how to control him.

“Those days are over,” Bucky said, once Zemo fell silent. “They don’t work anymore. I’m fixed.”

“I anticipated that,” Zemo replied. “But I was curious to see how the new you would react to the old words.”

He stepped forward, right up to the clear wall separating them, his eyes fixed on Bucky’s own. Bucky returned the gaze, refusing even to blink.

“Something is still in there, I think,” Zemo said.

Of course Zemo would know exactly what to say to get under his skin.

Bucky couldn’t prevent himself from showing a reaction to those words. They were so reminiscent of what he’d said to Christina once:

It’s a part of me: The darkness within.

He swallowed and broke Zemo’s gaze. He could see a self-satisfied smug smirk spread across Zemo’s face out of the corner of his eye as he cast his eye round the room to locate the surveillance cameras. There was one.

He’s going to mess with your head

Sam’s words came back to him, and he mentally shook them away. He could get this back on track but he had to be quick about it. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but if he returned to Sam to say he had wasted his opportunity to speak to Zemo because Sam had been one hundred percent right, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Look,” Bucky said, finally getting a handle on himself. “I’m here because someone’s making serum, and I think it’s connected to Hydra’s experiments in the 90s. We need to find out who it is. I need names.”

Zemo said nothing. Just stared at him with a thoughtful expression on his face. Bucky could guess at what was running through the man’s mind in the moment.

He would want to do something about the serum, but he wouldn’t want to help for nothing.
Zemo would know that Bucky wouldn’t come here if there was any other choice, so he would know that Bucky was desperate, having exhausted any other possible routes to getting this information.

Then something changed in Zemo’s face. He appeared resolved. He gave a nod, stepped back, grabbed a paper and pen and scribbled something on a piece of paper.

He beckoned Bucky over to a section of the glass that would block the view from the camera and pressed the writing to the glass for him to read. Scribbled on the scrap of paper was a location and the words tomorrow morning.

“Someone will meet you there,” Zemo said cryptically as Bucky heard the sounds of the door being unlocked. Zemo held the paper up for less than two seconds before scrunching it up and retreating away from the glass wall as the door opened behind Bucky.

So, Bucky thought as he was led back through the prison to re-join Sam, he’d been right on the money.

How do you break someone out of prison without breaking them out of prison? You give them a reason to break themselves out.

He’d had a keen feeling that Zemo, much as Bucky had done himself, was only remaining in prison out of choice. Zemo was far too clever and resourceful to be contained in prison if he wanted to leave.

T’Challa had told Bucky that Zemo had attempted to shoot himself. After succeeding in destroying the avengers he’d wanted nothing more than to join his wife, father and son in death. But T’Challa had deprived Zemo of achieving the end he’d sought, and instead Zemo had been locked away, never once trying to escape or break out.

Bucky knew how it felt to be that low, so despairing of life and to see no future ahead. To be so apathetic about your own fate that you would be content to rot away in prison until the end of time. And when he’d remembered what T’Challa had told him about Zemo he’d gambled that Zemo could leave prison at any point if someone gave him a reason to do so. And Bucky had given him that reason.

Bucky was willing to bet that the person Zemo said would meet them at the location he’d given would be Zemo himself. And if it wasn’t, then Bucky would just come back himself tomorrow night and break him out properly.

He said nothing about this to Sam. He also said nothing about the trigger words, or how Zemo had indeed, as Sam had predicted, tried to mess with his head. He didn’t want Sam to have any more misgivings else he might just pull the plug on the whole thing.

God, Sam was going to be furious if Zemo did show up to meet them tomorrow morning.

When Sam asked him what Zemo had said, the only thing Bucky told him about was that Zemo had given him a location.

“What’s there?” Sam asked.

Bucky just shrugged.

“It’s a lead,” he said instead of answering Sam’s question. “Let’s follow it up.”

 

The location was a private air base. In one of the hangers was kept about 40 or 50 cars, some dating back decades. As Bucky looked around he considered that Zemo must have resources. That would be helpful.

They waited a good two hours and the morning was swiftly passing.

“What are we doing here, Buck?” Sam said, finally impatient. “I think Zemo fucked you around, he was never going to help.”

But Bucky, with his enhanced hearing, could hear the sound of a car approaching. And it wouldn’t be long before Sam would hear it as well.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said very quickly to Sam, avoiding eye contact.

Sam just looked at him, and Bucky’s guilty expression told him all he needed to know.

“What did you do?” he asked suspiciously.

“I didn’t do anything,” Bucky said, and that was technically true. “It’s just that I’m fairly certain that the car pulling up has Zemo in it.”

Sam’s face went completely blank for a moment as he processed Bucky’s words. Bucky could tell the exact moment the words landed as Sam’s expression changed from revelation, to shock, to disappointment all in a fraction of a second.

“For the love of…” Sam muttered, and without another word he pivoted and walked out of the hanger. Bucky trailed after him, feeling absolutely awful for having kept Sam out of the loop like this, whilst also knowing that he’d had no other choice.

It was indeed Zemo, sitting in the back of the car like royalty whilst his driver, a man who looked as old as Bucky himself actually was, opened the door for him to exit. The old man didn’t spare Sam and Bucky a single glance before scurrying off with surprising swiftness towards one of the hangers.

Zemo turned towards them and approached casually, as if this were a normal everyday meeting between old friends.

Sam grabbed Bucky’s arm. “You broke him out of prison,” he hissed, his eyes flashing with barely contained anger.

“I did not,” Bucky said truthfully, falling back on his good old friend plausible deniability.

“How could you not tell me…” Sam retorted accusingly, before dropping Bucky’s arm and turning to confront Zemo who had now reached them.

“Gentlemen,” Zemo said but before he could continue Sam cut across him.

“You’re going back to prison,” Sam said firmly.

Zemo just smiled pleasantly back at him and walked past them into the hanger they had just left.

“I didn’t break him out of prison,” Bucky said, once Zemo was out of earshot. “He just told me to come here, I promise.”

Sam glared at him suspiciously.

“So you had no idea he was going to be here?” Sam asked.

Bucky felt his face flush.

“I didn’t say that,” he muttered. And then louder he said, “But I did not break him out of prison.”

Sam raised his hands in exasperation, before grabbing Bucky’s arm once again and marched him into the hanger to find Zemo, who was searching through the cars looking for something.

“This man framed you for an international terrorist incident,” Sam lectured him quietly as they watched Zemo, “he killed the King of Wakanda – what do you think they would think of this?”

Bucky felt a stab of guilt. He’d not really thought about what the Wakandans would think about Zemo being out. He’d been so focused on the plan and the super-soldiers that he’d not really thought about the impact of this. He felt they would understand though, and he’d return Zemo to prison afterwards. It would be fine.

“We need him, Sam,” Bucky said, actually starting to feel anxious now that Sam might put his foot down now and end this mission before it had properly even started. “He knows things we need.”

“That’s certainly true,” Zemo said, having located whatever it was he was looking for, and finally returning to them.

Sam still looked furious, and clearly unconvinced.

“Sam,” Bucky said persuasively, “come on. You said it yourself: we’ve got nothing.”

“I really think I’m invaluable,” Zemo said smoothly.

“Oh shut up, both of you,” Sam snapped, putting his hand to his forehead and rubbing as though he was developing a headache. Bucky waited, almost holding his breath, for Sam’s decision.

“Fine,” Sam forced the word out through gritted teeth, and Bucky felt his heart lift, relieved that Sam was going to allow this, that Sam wasn’t going to send Zemo back to prison. But then Sam fixed a look on Bucky which made his insides shrivel. It was a look of complete betrayal, a look that said:

 You’ve really done it now.

Bucky swallowed and tried to convey to Sam without words, as he didn’t want Zemo to hear, how sorry he was. He knew that it would take a lot for Sam to forgive him for this deceit.

“Well this is lovely,” Zemo said, his eyes flickering between the two of them with interest, “but we really must be getting on.”

Bucky tore his eyes away from Sam and eyed Zemo cautiously. Zemo looked so much in control, imperious even. As if this was his mission and he was the man in charge. Suddenly he felt a stab of doubt. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea – what ulterior motives would Zemo have? What would be the price for his assistance with this?

“What’s the plan then, Zemo?” Sam asked tiredly.

“We’re going to climb a ladder,” Zemo said, “the first rung of which will be found in Madripoor.”

Madripoor - Bucky felt his stomach lurch. A place of criminals, murderers and thieves. A place where the Winter Soldier had been well-known while most of the world had thought him a myth.

Well, it made sense that Madripoor would be the next step of their journey. It also made sense that Zemo would have contacts there.

He followed Sam and Zemo out of the hanger listening as Zemo explained to Sam about Madripoor and who they would be speaking to there.

“Madripoor,” Zemo said as he led them across the airfield, “is a hive of scum and villainy.”

“So you will fit right in,” Sam said.

Zemo ignored him. “And we will be speaking to the hive’s queen bee. Nothing happens under Selby’s watch without her knowing about it. If there’s information to be had, she will have it.”

Zemo walked them up to a plane that was ready and waiting for them. The old man that had driven him there came down the gangway and greeted Zemo in a language Bucky didn’t know. He guessed this was Sokovian. From the sound of it, it shared a lot of similarities with the Slavic languages; there was definitely some Czech sounds, a bit of Polish and perhaps even some Hungarian. It felt it probably wouldn’t take too long for him to pick it up – he’d always had an affinity for languages and the serum had enhanced that ability considerably.

When they were in the air, with the old man piloting the plane – Zemo had introduced him as Oeznik, his ‘butler’ – Zemo settled back comfortably in his seat, a glass of champagne in hand, and started to share information about what he had in mind for them.

“We can’t walk into Madripoor as ourselves,” he told them. “Well, I can. I’m well known there.”

“No surprises there,” Sam muttered.

“But they won’t trust you, Sam,” Zemo continued as if Sam hadn’t spoken. “You will need to be someone else, someone who they will trust. I’ve got some ideas about that. And you James…”

Bucky’s head shot up, somewhat shocked at the way Zemo addressed him, although he wasn’t sure how else Zemo would. He’d almost expected the man to say soldier.

“Well,” Zemo said, his eyes fixed on Bucky’s, gauging his reaction, “you will need to become someone you claim isn’t there anymore.”

Bucky felt his heartbeat pick up speed at what Zemo was suggesting. Sam had clearly picked up on it too.

“Wait a minute,” Sam objected, “you mean Bucky going as the Winter Soldier. Absolutely not.”

Sam looked at Bucky, as though seeking agreement from him, but Bucky couldn’t find his voice.

“Bucky doesn’t have to come,” Sam told Zemo. “You and I will go and find this woman, and Bucky can wait for us.”

That snapped Bucky out of his silence, and he was about to raise his voice in argument but Zemo spoke up before he could.

“You,” Zemo addressed Sam, “are superfluous. Your presence isn’t needed at all. But his – ” Zemo gestured towards Bucky with a wave of his hand – “you don’t get something for nothing in Madripoor,” he continued. “The Winter Soldier works as a threat, but also a carrot. Selby would give up anything if she thought the Winter Soldier might be the reward.”

Bucky swallowed. Zemo was speaking the truth. He stared out of the window at the clouds and considered.

“I’ll do it,” Bucky said.

Sam made a noise of disbelief.

“I can get everything we need,” Zemo said. “There’s a place we can go, just outside the main city. I have some… ah… associates who can provide everything.”

“Hold your horses,” Sam said quickly, “I haven’t agreed to this. Bucky...can we talk?”

Sam gestured to another part of the plane. He wanted to talk without Zemo overhearing. Bucky didn’t want that. He didn’t want to hear Sam’s objections to this. He could guess what Sam would say, and he didn’t want Sam to talk him out of it. He was resolved now.

“No,” Bucky replied, and he saw Zemo smile that smug satisfied smile once again and that was alarming.

“Fine, then I’ll say it right here,” Sam said, his tone one of impatience and frustration, and Bucky could tell that Sam was being pushed almost past breaking point.

“I think this is a very bad idea,” Sam said loudly, and firmly. “I think it would significantly and potentially irreparably damage your recovery.”

Bucky clenched his fists in his lap, keenly aware that Zemo was taking in every word. He felt absolutely furious with Sam for his audacity. This was complete and utter humiliation and he couldn’t believe the words that Sam was saying to him right now, with this audience.

“You are acting irrationally,” Sam continued, his forefinger pointing at Bucky like a weapon, and still speaking very loudly and clearly. “You say you’re fixed? You say you want to move away from your past and the Winter Soldier? I don’t see how this will do anything other than just drive you right back.”

“It would not, I think, be a lengthy drive,” Zemo interjected smoothly.

“Enough!” Bucky shouted. It took all his self-control then not to launch himself at Zemo and pummel that smug self-centred bastard in the face for that comment. And he was absolutely livid with Sam for what he had just revealed in front of Zemo. This was so much worse than the time Sam had called him emotionally vulnerable. This was public humiliation.

Bucky took a deep breath to calm himself down. He wouldn’t let this lead to a freak out. He wouldn’t want to prove Sam right after all. He was doing better now. He had more control over himself. When he spoke he was relieved to hear that his own voice was calm.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told Sam. “And I don’t need you treating me like I can’t cope. I am perfectly capable of playing a part. And if you’re not happy with it – well, as Zemo said, we can just leave you behind.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how he and Sam could ever recover from this once this was all over. In such a short space of time things had deteriorated so rapidly between them, just when things were starting to look better as well. And there was Zemo, looking like he was enjoying himself immensely, and Bucky couldn’t help but wonder just how much they were playing into his hands.

It wasn’t like Bucky was thrilled by the prospect, donning the Winter Soldier persona like a costume, as an act. But this was what he needed to do. And while he trusted that Zemo wanted to end the super-soldier threat, Bucky was also very much aware that Zemo would have his own agenda.

And by the way Zemo kept looking at him; Bucky was starting to feel very concerned that Zemo’s agenda might involve him.

He tried to push those thoughts aside and instead tried to focus and mentally prepare himself for the mission ahead. He’d have to get back into the Winter Soldier headspace, and that was not going to be an easy or a pleasant task.

Don’t think, don’t feel, he told himself, just comply.

“Let’s just get it over with,” he said.

Notes:

I'm really not clear on how Bucky got Zemo out of prison in the show - something to do with the keycard in the book I assume. It was kinda glossed over and I decided to go a different route - I just love the idea of Bucky repeating to people over and over again that he didn't break Zemo out of prison and them having to believe him because they know he can't lie, whilst knowing that he must have done something.

Also I'm sorry for once again putting a rift between Sam and Bucky. Like I said there's a lot of bumps in the road. Bucky is pushing Sam beyond his limits and this is going to cause difficulties. This won't be the only time either, but it will get better. One of the things that I think the show manages to get across reasonably well is how in the early episodes Bucky does engage in very self-destructive decision making, almost selfish in a way - but that this changes towards the (very rushed) ending. This is my depiction of that arc.

Chapter 31: When in Madripoor... Part One

When in Madripoor… Part One

 

“One of the perks of being ludicrously wealthy,” Zemo said as he ushered Sam and Bucky into an enormous chandeliered entryway, “is that I own property in nearly every major city across the globe.”

Zemo’s butler, Oeznik, wasn’t with them. He’d vanished shortly after landing the plane to carry out some ‘errands’ as Zemo had put it. Probably out executing Zemo’s nefarious plans, Bucky thought. His suspicion of Zemo and his motivations hadn’t abated in the slightest and he was keen to get this all over and done with so they could part ways as quickly as possible.

After the altercation with Sam on the plane things were still very tense between the two of them. They’d barely spoken more than a few words to each other and Bucky was desperate to get to the other side of this unpleasant situation so he and Sam could talk without the pressure of the mission and Zemo causing difficulties between them.

It hurt when he thought of how different it had been only a few days ago, back at the hotel. He felt that he and Sam had really reached an understanding with one another. It was almost like it had been before the emotionally vulnerable incident, and he felt a pang of remorse and regret when he remembered him and Sam standing outside the hotel talking about Isaiah and Steve. And now it was broken again, possibly beyond repair and Bucky knew that it was due to his own actions and behaviour.

And here they were stuck in Madripoor with Zemo, unable to properly talk with Sam being dragged along unwillingly to take part in something he really didn’t want to be involved in. Bucky couldn’t blame Sam for his outburst on the plane, although he was still irritated by how much Sam had revealed in front of Zemo, but Bucky was painfully aware that he and Sam was fast heading in a direction where they may never be able to recover any kind of positive relationship with one another ever again. And Bucky had no idea how to fix this. It was like watching a car crash. They were headed towards the inevitable ruin of their friendship and Bucky felt powerless to stop it from happening.

And he needed to stop thinking about Sam. He needed to think about Madripoor and Selby, and being the Winter Soldier again for a short period of time. He needed to focus.

Bucky barely listened to Zemo as he talked about the house, about the arrangements he’d made for their arrival. His mind now preoccupied with the role he was going to have to play in just a few hours. He’d been blasé about it to Sam, I’m perfectly capable of playing a part, he’d said, but the reality was that the prospect of what he was going to have to do shook him to his very core.

He’d sent Christina a quick message on his new phone just as the plane landed. Just a short update - reassuring her that he was fine, that he was still with Sam and that they were making good progress. She sent a reply almost immediately asking where they were – a message he was still ignoring. He’d followed the rules by checking in with her; she didn’t need to know anything else.

As Zemo vanished off into the kitchen, leaving Sam and Bucky alone together in the luxurious living room, Bucky eyed Sam warily. There was a risk that Sam might report back to Christina, or to one of the President's advisers, about what they were planning on doing, which could lead to him being told to send Bucky back. The powers that be had to know Zemo was out of prison by now, they must have guessed at Sam and Bucky’s involvement – it wouldn’t take a genius to work that out, seeing as they were both at the prison just before Zemo escaped. Were they just trusting that Sam knew what he was doing and letting things play out, or was Sam deliberately keeping everyone in the dark? Maybe Sam felt they were in too deep now and that his only option was to just let things play out.

He didn’t dare actually open his mouth and ask Sam because he was concerned that that would lead to another verbal altercation, and potentially push Sam into calling the whole thing off anyway and only serve to drive the wedge further between them.

He could feel the stress building up from somewhere deep within him, he felt restless and antsy, and he forced himself to stay completely still, even though he wanted to jump up out of his chair and pace around the room. There were just too many thoughts and worries whirling around inside his head.

Thoughts about Sam, his worry about losing Sam forever and constantly getting things wrong and his guilt for his deceit and constantly dragging Sam into these situations without his knowledge.

There were worries about Zemo and his motivations. Worries about the Wakandans and that they would view his involvement with Zemo as a betrayal after all they'd done for him.

He was worried about Christina, because he was keeping things from her and embarking on actions that he knew she wouldn’t approve of.

And then there was Selby, Madripoor and the Winter Soldier, and everything he was about to do and get involved in. What if Sam was right and this did damage his recovery? What if he reverted into the Winter Soldier headspace and then couldn’t come back out of it?

And then there was the serum, the super-soldiers and the scientists – who was making the serum? Was it someone who had experimented on Bucky back in the 90s as he suspected?  What if Sam found out about that?

And back again to Zemo – how much did Zemo actually know about what Hydra were doing in the 90s? Did Zemo know about the scientists' experiments on Bucky? Would Zemo tell Sam about it?

Everything that had already happened, and everything that was still yet to come whirled round and round in his head as he sat still and silent and waited for Zemo to return.  

God he wanted a drink so badly. And some cigarettes. His fingers itched to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out the nearly empty cigarette packet that he’d bought after leaving the police station a few days ago. He had two cigarettes left and his lighter was zipped up in his inside pocket.

He couldn’t smoke now; that would just trigger Sam and he couldn’t risk pushing Sam any further. He’d have to wait.

Zemo returned carrying a tray covered in light snacks and nibbles, some sweet cakes he called ‘Oblande’, some filled wine glasses and a carafe of what looked like a deep red wine. Bucky felt his heart leap as Zemo placed the tray on the coffee table in the centre of the room and gestured to them both to help themselves.

Thirty minutes later the carafe was empty, while Zemo was only on his second glass and Sam hadn’t even touched his. Sam had accepted some of the food however, while Bucky had not which elicited a raised eyebrow from Zemo but, thankfully, no comment. Bucky didn’t like the way Zemo often looked at him. Zemo had an inscrutable face and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Bucky had never felt comfortable around people like that; it had always unnerved him not knowing what thoughts were running through someone’s mind.

Conversation was stilted. Sam and Zemo were having a mild debate about music Bucky had never heard of, while Bucky remained silent and brooding.

And then a knock at the door – “Aha!” Zemo said, slapping his hands on his knees and standing, “now we make some progress. James would you…”

Bucky was on his feet immediately rushing to the main entrance and pulling open the door to see a large wooden box only, no person in sight. He took it back through to the other room and stood back to allow Zemo to open it up.

Zemo riffled through the contents of the box and pulled out some items of clothing which he passed over to Sam. He explained that Sam was going to take the guise of a man known as ‘Smiling Tiger’ AKA Conrad Mack who apparently bore a passing similarity to Sam and who was also someone who remained quite insular and avoided people as much as possible (fearing assassination attempts). This meant that there were very few people in Madripoor who would be able to tell that they were not the same person.

Sam had some follow up questions which Zemo answered, but Bucky had tuned them out again, his mind completely fixated on what else would be in the box. He didn’t need to pay attention to whatever Sam was being told about the man he would be impersonating. Bucky’s role was to be the Winter Soldier, no-one would be asking him any questions about Conrad Mack.

But what did going as the Winter Soldier actually mean? Was Zemo expecting him to dress up as well? Was he going to look in the mirror and see the Winter Soldier staring back out at him? The same vision he’d feared seeing when he’d looked into the mirror at the hotel and noticed that his hair was growing longer rose up in his mind.

It seemed to be an age before Zemo finally turned towards him and pulled out some more clothes.

Straps. Buckles. Black Leather.

A leather sleeveless jacket with laces up the front which was worn over a tight fitting leather shirt, also entirely black. Reinforced combat trousers, and boots.

The straps across the chest that made it look like he was wearing a straitjacket.

And finally Zemo pulled out a mask. Bucky turned away so he didn’t have to look at it. It was purposed and designed to hide his identity, He didn’t remember when he’d started wearing a mask, he had a vague recollection that in the very early years he hadn’t but then something had happened which made Lukin concerned that he might be recognised, although he had no idea what that was. And it was then that the mask first made its appearance. It wasn’t just to hide his identity; it was more like a muzzle than anything else. It made him stand out almost as much as the arm did. It othered him. He could imagine that Christina would say that it dehumanised him.

The whole outfit was not designed for comfort but for efficiency. Those clothes contained nothing but misery and horror and seeing them now brought it all back in a horrible sickening rush.

Being strapped down, having his mind burned away, his mind and body entirely overcome and operating at someone else’s will. All that pain. All that sadness and endless horror and misery. All that death and blood and mindlessness.

When Zemo had first suggested that he play ‘Winter Soldier’ he’d not considered what that would actually look like. And now he was here with the grim reality staring at him in the face he really wasn’t sure he could go through with this.

He noticed that both Sam and Zemo were studying him intently. Sam looked concerned, while Zemo’s gaze was one of mild interest and curiosity.

Bucky swallowed and took a step back. Zemo piled up the clothes in front of him but held onto the mask.

“We won’t need weapons,” Zemo said, “We won’t get anywhere if we’re armed. We need them to trust us and carrying any guns or knives would just jeopardise the mission.”

The mission

Those two words actually helped to return Bucky back to some semblance of normalcy. That’s right; they were here on a mission of utmost importance. Someone affiliated with Hydra was making Super-Soldier Serum, and there were eight, possibly more, super-soldiers running around and causing havoc.

He couldn’t back out. Not now. And he mustn’t give Sam a reason to also back out. He knew he had to calm his anxiety, quell his misgivings. He could do this. He had to.

Zemo tossed the mask casually over towards Bucky who, on instinct, reached out to catch it. Bucky felt the stiff material beneath his fingertips and finally allowed himself to look properly at it. He took a short sharp breath as he realised that it was an exact replica. All the items of clothing Zemo had acquired were. How could Zemo get these clothes? He could almost be convinced that they were actually clothes he’d worn at some point. They didn’t look new. The mask could have been the very same one he’d last worn in 2014, but he assumed it wasn’t.

Could Zemo have acquired them from some Hydra base at some point? Why? When? How?

And how on Earth was he actually going to summon up the will to put these items of clothing on? He didn’t think he could actually command his body to hold the mask up to his face and allow Zemo or Sam (Zemo probably) to do it up for him. The thought of standing still while Zemo buckled the straps up round the back made him feel sick.

“Bucky?”

Bucky blinked and looked up at Sam who had walked over without Bucky even noticing. Bucky tried to appear normal, like he wasn’t falling apart on the inside, but he knew it was a lost cause. He felt shaky and disorientated and he knew Sam would be able to tell.

“You’re staring again…” Sam said quietly. “I don’t...”

Sam then turned to Zemo.

“We need another plan,” Sam said bluntly, “This isn’t the right way. There has to be another way.”

“I have the will to carry out this mission,” Zemo said, “as does James. With whatever that entails; however unpleasant. James knows what must be done. Why don’t you?”

Sam let out a frustrated groan and attempted to tug the mask out of Bucky’s hands, but Bucky had it in a tight grip and wouldn’t give it up.

Sam then rounded on Zemo.

“Bucky is susceptible enough to think that you can be trusted with this,” he declared heatedly. “I’m not. I think this is all some kind of malicious game you’re playing and Bucky is playing right into it.”

That same anger Bucky had felt towards Sam after his last outburst on the plane returned, and the emotion was strong enough to draw him out of his blank state.

“Stop it!” he snapped. He wasn’t shouting, but he knew he sounded angry. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here. I’m sick of it.”

He turned to Zemo. “I’m sick of your fucking posturing,” he continued forcefully, “you don’t know me. Stop acting like you do. And you…” he turned now to Sam and when he saw Sam’s wide concerned eyes looking back at him he felt some of his anger deflate. He couldn’t really be cross with Sam, Sam was only acting out of care – he knew that.

“I get it,” Bucky said, gently now rather than angrily, “I understand that you are worried about me and I appreciate that, I really do and I’m sorry for bringing all this on you, I really am… I’m not angry at you but…” he licked his lips, “I don’t need a defender. I don’t need you to protect me. I need you to work with me. Please.”

His eyes flickered over to Zemo who was hungrily taking in every word, and he felt a little embarrassed about his display of vulnerability in front of this man. Zemo would be mentally filing away every word, every interaction in the hope of using against them later, he knew it.

Bucky chucked the mask back at Zemo.

“I’m not wearing this,” he declared decisively.

“We need to be as authentic as possible,” Zemo said, “although I can understand why the prospect might be causing you some consternation…”

Bucky could feel his temper rising again.

“Oh shove it up your fucking arse you self-important pompous…”

-“Bucky!” Sam interrupted loudly, before Bucky could finish his insult.  Sam now stood between him and Zemo, arms slightly raised as if trying to stop them from hurling themselves at each other.

“Let’s just take some time out,” Sam said, “and calm down. I think we all need a little break from each other, and then we can come back and talk, like adults, about the best way of getting in and out with the information we need with as little drama as possible. Agreed?”

Bucky and Zemo both nodded.

“I’m still not wearing that,” Bucky said, nodding towards the mask. “I don’t need to. Everyone knows who I am. What’s the point of it? Don’t you want people to know it’s me? They might think you’re bringing an imposter otherwise, especially as my arm and hair are different. Also, you’ll have to come up with some explanation as to why I’m under your control when the whole world knows I’m fixed now.”

“Already in hand,” Zemo said, “If it comes up, I will say that as the last person to use the trigger words on you, you were particularly vulnerable to being under my control, and that I have access to Hydra brainwashing equipment and the red book of course.”

Bucky’s caught his breath at the mention of the red book. Of Course Zemo had to throw that at him. But he wouldn’t react and give Sam more reasons to be worried.

“Fine,” he muttered.

They took a break, as per Sam’s suggestion. They had enough time before they’d have to leave. Sam gathered up his clothes and went to take a shower. Zemo vanished off into another part of the house as well, and Bucky didn’t have the will to follow him and make sure he wasn’t up to anything.

Bucky ran his fingers over the buckles and leather straps of the outfit he would soon be getting into. It wouldn’t be quite exactly the same, he told himself. There’d be no mask. There’d be no guns or weapons. And as he said earlier his arm and hair were both different now. He wouldn’t look exactly like the Winter Soldier, hiding behind a curtain of sullen grunge misery, with the silver metal arm with the red star adorning the shoulder. He could do this.

He took a deep breath and pulled out his last two cigarettes. A quick smoke for courage and then he’d get dressed up. Then Sam and Zemo would come back, go over the plan again in more detail, and then Oeznik would be there to pick them up in the car and take them to Selby’s location. Then he would just have to stand around and look threatening – maybe give a Winter Soldier stare at some people to intimidate them. He wouldn’t need to say anything. No-one would ask him questions. It was the easiest part to play really, Sam and Zemo had much harder roles – Sam especially. It was far harder to pretend to be someone else convincingly, and Sam would have to be really focused in order to pull it over, no matter how little known the real Conrad Mack was.

Bucky lit up and let his mind drift off.

“When did you take up smoking?” Zemo’s voice behind him almost made him jump and he mentally told himself off. He needed to stop phasing out and to start paying more attention to his surroundings. People should not be able to sneak up on him.

Zemo sat down on the armchair opposite and Bucky noticed that he’d got changed into more practical attire. Bucky looked down at the cigarette in his fingers and couldn’t help himself from answering.

“Since I was a kid,” Bucky replied, “started drinking young too,” he smiled wanly. “I got in with a bad crowd...story of my life. My uncle Harry…” Bucky suddenly stopped, remembering who he was talking to. How on Earth did Zemo manage to worm his way into Bucky’s head so effectively that here Bucky was almost sharing his life story with the man?

Perhaps Zemo hadn’t been far off the mark, he thought, when he’d talked about Bucky being more vulnerable to being under his control because he’d been the last person to control the Winter Soldier. Rumlow had said something very similar, hadn’t he? And Bucky had felt the same strong compulsion to obey Rumlow as he was feeling now with Zemo. But Rumlow had been in control of him for years, whereas with Zemo it had only been a very short interaction. Surely Zemo couldn’t have such power over him?

Bucky wouldn’t let him.

“What do you want, Zemo?” he asked blunty.

Zemo’s eyes flickered up to the ceiling and answered in a hush tone, as if afraid of being overheard. “Sam is on the phone,” Zemo said.

Bucky shrugged.

“So what?” he asked.

“He’s talking to someone about you,” Zemo said. Bucky felt a sudden chill shudder down his spine and his own eyes flickered up to the ceiling where he could hear Sam’s footsteps pacing around. Was Sam really on the phone talking about him, or was this something Zemo was saying to stir up more conflict and trouble between them?

“It sounded like he was talking to someone official,” Zemo said, reveling in Bucky’s doubt. “I’m concerned that he may prevent the mission from going ahead.”

“He won’t,” Bucky said, trying to sound confident, but Zemo’s words niggled in his brain.

Someone official?

The President? Colonel Rhodes? Christina? Was Sam right now reporting his concerns about Bucky, telling whoever it was that Bucky wasn’t up to this and had to return home?

You are acting irrationally Sam had said on the plane.

Bucky felt his heart beat pick up speed as he considered this. What if Sam came down and called the whole thing off? What if someone was on their way, right now, to escort Bucky back?

And if that was the case, what on Earth was Bucky going to do about it?

“We could go now,” Zemo said, “and leave him here. Oeznik is ready with the car whenever we need it. Sam’s a potential liability and could cause the whole thing to fall apart.”

So that was Zemo’s agenda. He was probably lying, just trying to separate Bucky from Sam. Maybe Zemo was genuinely concerned about Sam disrupting the mission but more likely Zemo just wanted Bucky all to himself.

Bucky had had enough of Zemo’s games and he wasn’t going along with them any more than he had to.

“I’m not going without Sam,” Bucky said clearly and firmly. “I don’t care what you say.”

Zemo fell silent.

“There’s something else…” Zemo said after a couple of beats, and his tone made Bucky’s anxiety rear up once again. Sam was right when he said they needed to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. These circumstances were playing havoc on his moods. He was all over the place. In the space of such a short time he’d gone back and forth between stress, anxiety, anger, fear, remorse over and over and it was getting exhausting.

“I haven’t mentioned this in front of Sam,” Zemo said conspiratorially, “as I don’t want to give him more reason to disrupt our plans but…” he paused for effect.

Bucky fixed his eyes on Zemo.

“Just say it…” Bucky said wearily.

“I anticipate that your role may end up being more involved than I’ve let on,” Zemo said almost tentatively. “We will invite challenge, and there may need to be demonstrations of my control over you. Violence is pretty much the only language they speak in Madripoor and when in Madripoor..." he waved a hand, "...do as Madriporeans do," he finished.

Bucky took a deep long drag on his cigarette and breathed out slowly, smoke billowing around him.

Demonstrations of control his mind repeated, throwing up suggestions as what that might look like. His stomach gave a lurch as he remembered Christina telling him to get into fights for self-defence only.

But it couldn’t be helped. It had to be done.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky said.

“James…” Zemo said, “my own life is at stake here. I need reassurance…”

Bucky shot him a glare and Zemo faltered, cowed by the intensity of Bucky’s expression.

“I said don’t worry about it,” Bucky repeated clearly and firmly. “Just tell me what to do, and I will do it.”

Zemo nodded. And then Bucky quickly hastened to add,

“But I won’t kill anyone.”

Zemo hesitated but then nodded again.

“Any other restrictions?” Zemo asked.

Bucky shook his head.

“And do you really believe that Sam will be able to stand by if I give you orders?” Zemo said. “No matter what I tell you do to, none of us can break cover. And he…” Zemo hesitated for a moment, choosing his words carefully, “...he cares more about your well-being than you do yourself, I think. A great deal more.”

And he shot Bucky a look which was full of meaning, and Bucky silently cursed himself for how obvious he and Sam had been around each other in Zemo’s presence. All Sam’s concern, the meaningful glances… what had Zemo managed to pick up on? Bucky had noticed the way Zemo paid attention to him and Sam, taking in every word, every fleeting look. They were just handing Zemo ammunition against them on a platter. They needed to be far more careful about how they spoke and acted around Zemo.

“Sam will do fine,” Bucky said, “he’s an Avenger. He was in the air force. He’s very capable and I have no doubt that with his help we will get what we’re here for.”

Bucky could hear Sam’s steps again on the ceiling above, moving with purpose now, and he knew Sam would be joining them in a moment. He’d better get changed.

“Well then Soldier,” Zemo said coolly, “ready to comply?”

And Bucky realised that he was, indeed, ready to comply.

Up to a point.

Notes:

The description of the Winter Soldier outfit was taken from this very interesting blog I found from 2014 about Captain America: The Winter Soldier 'The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes'

Here's a link:

the Tragedy of Bucky Barnes.

I highly recommend reading this, there's some heartbreaking explorations of Bucky Barnes as well as a quote which I used in this chapter - 'hiding behind a curtain of sullen grunge misery'

Chapter 32: When in Madripoor... Part Two

Notes:

I have a minor content warning for this chapter. I know I wasn’t the only person who watched the episode with Selby and saw Zemo wiggle Bucky’s chin and say ‘He will do anything you want’ and think: oh my god the implications… you have a mind controlled human owned by morally questionable people, they’ve totally taken advantage of him at some point.

This chapter includes those implications in a bit more detail. No explicit language or visuals or anything, just implications and Bucky worrying about them. I’ve read some fanfics on here that kinda took this scene to the extreme and very explicitly – I’m not doing that. It’s just implications and Selby acting a bit more weird and creepy with him.

When in Madripoor… Part Two

 

Bucky let Zemo get out of the car first, and quickly grabbed Sam’s arm to stop him from exiting the car as well. Oeznik was still in the driver’s seat and the cavalcade that had joined them as they’d driven over the bridge into the city was still surrounding the car outside.

They took security to the extreme in Madripoor and newcomers of any kind provoked a lot of interest.

“What is it?” Sam asked, instantly alert and intensely focused.

Bucky eyed Sam nervously, thinking about what Zemo had said to him earlier that evening. In a few minutes Zemo would be acting as though he had control of the Winter Soldier and Bucky had to play that part to perfection and he needed Sam not to react badly to it.

And God… Sam looked ridiculous in that outfit which apparently made him look like the spitting image of ‘Smiling Tiger’. Sam had moaned about looking like a pimp earlier – the bright colours, the impossible heels – and he hadn’t been wrong. Bucky wondered whether Zemo was playing some kind of malicious joke on Sam and perhaps the so called ‘Smiling Tiger’ was just a figment of his imagination in order to humiliate him.

“Whatever happens in there,” Bucky said quickly, well aware that Zemo was waiting for them outside the car. “I need you to just let it happen. It’s important.”

Sam’s eyes snapped towards him sharply. “What do you mean?” he asked. His eyes drifted outside the car to where Zemo was waiting. “What did he say to you?” He sounded suspicious and wary.

Bucky swallowed.

“Look,” he said, “this is horrible for both of us, and… if it’s all for nothing, it’ll be so much worse. So if I have to do things… please just don’t... don’t react.”

“What did Zemo tell you to do?” Sam pressed.

Bucky fixed his gaze on the back of the seat that Zemo had just vacated so he couldn’t see Sam’s eyes.

“I’m the Winter Soldier, Sam,” he said quietly, “I do whatever he tells me to. It needs to be believable.”

He couldn’t bear to see the look on Sam’s face, full of worry and pity; he didn’t want Sam’s pity. He couldn’t bring himself to explain any further and he did not want any follow up questions; that would have to be enough. He grabbed the door handle and let himself out of the car, moving to take his place behind Zemo and waited for Sam to join them. Zemo looked at him questioningly, an eyebrow raised and glanced over towards Sam. Bucky gave him a small nod.

He was ready. Sam was on board.

He hoped.

Madripoor was a city of lights – bright neon flashing lights. It was a city of noise and mayhem. Dance music pounded out from behind every entrance they passed – night club after night club. Nothing was illegal in Madripoor – prostitution, drugs, gangs and gun violence – people here lived a life of lawlessness and debauchery.

A hive of scum and villainy were the words Zemo had used to describe it. He wasn’t wrong.

Zemo led them to the outside of a bar – ‘The Brass Monkey’ emblazoned on a brightly coloured flashing neon sign above the entrance.

“Into the breach…” Bucky heard Zemo mutter. And it suddenly occurred to him that despite all of Zemo’s bluster and confidence that the other man was actually nervous. He hoped Sam didn’t pick up on it. Bucky quickly pushed Zemo through the entrance before he could lose his nerve, or before Sam could call the whole thing off.

Every eye in the bar turned towards them as the door slammed shut behind them. A sea of criminal faces eyeing them cautiously, suspiciously, weighing them up in their minds. Bucky saw a group of men looking at them before moving into a huddle, clearly conspiring together.

They were new here. That meant that they were automatically classed as ‘other’ and therefore a potential threat.

Bucky cast his gaze around the room and tried to tune out the blaring loud music so he could focus on anything that was being said by the people around him, as Zemo led them towards the bar. Zemo was playing his part well. He exuded confidence and walked through the masses as though he owned the place. Bucky couldn’t see how Sam was holding up as Sam was walking behind him as the Winter Soldier’s place was right behind his handler…

Zemo suddenly spoke loudly and clearly, aiming for his voice to be heard by as many as possible above the loud music. It was mangled Russian but the words ‘Winter Soldier’ were clearly recognisable and had the effect that Zemo had been waiting for.

“Is that the Winter Soldier?’ his enhanced hearing picked up from somewhere to the left, a hushed tone, sounding disbelieving. And he heard other such mutterings reverberating around the room.

Zemo had telegraphed his presence. Bucky felt his fists clench. This was where the fun begins.

At the bar Bucky remained focused on the groups of people surrounding them while Sam and Zemo made conversation with the bar man. Bucky didn’t need to pay attention to what they were saying – he needed to be focused on their surroundings, alert to any danger – of which there was plenty.

His eyes fell on a bar menu, drawn to a name he recognised under the heading ‘Drinks’

The Smiling Tiger – 0.026 BTC
Gin, Triple Sec, Equatorial Spitting Cobra Heart, Finger Lime

It was at the top of the list, above a drink called Tuna Tears. All the prices were in bitcoin – made sense but that wasn’t what had drawn his attention.

Zemo had told them that ‘The Smiling Tiger’ wasn’t well known. And yet here was a drink named after him at this bar. Had Zemo been lying? From the moment they’d walked in, had they been immediately flagged as impostures? Or was ‘Conrad Mack’ really that unrecognisable in a place that honoured his alter ego by naming a drink after him?

And also: what on Earth had Conrad Mack done that warranted such honour? Who was Sam impersonating and what would people expect of him?

Bucky wished now that he had paid attention to Zemo’s crash course on Conrad Mack earlier as he had no idea how much Sam had been told about the man he was pretending to be.

Bucky watched as Sam choked down the very drink named after the man he was impersonating. His performance seemed to fool the barman, who nodded approvingly and passed a drink over to Zemo and struck up conversation.

Zemo drew the barman’s attention to Bucky, gesturing towards him and saying they were here to see Selby.

“New hair cut?” the barman asked. Bucky remained silent. But it certainly confirmed that he’d been recognised and accepted as the Winter Soldier despite the changes to his appearance.

Zemo sent the barman off to request that Selby see them and as he and Sam discussed someone called ‘The Power Broker’ effectively the King of Madripoor, Bucky could tell that the atmosphere had changed the moment that the barman had left them.

It was like a switch had been turned on. While every eye had been pinned on them watching their every move, now there was movement. People getting into position, and other people moving subtly out of the way. Even the music appeared to have quietened down a bit, and the hushed whispers had stopped.

Bucky could tell that Zemo was also aware of the change in atmosphere, for while he was talking his own gaze picked out certain individuals and he gave Bucky a nod and Bucky nodded back, mentally signalling that he was ready.

As three men approached, Zemo once again declared loudly to the room in Russian:

“Winter Soldier!” Followed by more Russian words that didn’t make sense in this context. It didn’t matter that Zemo’s Russian was simply godawful, Bucky knew what his role was, and the moment one of the men approached Zemo to lay a hand on his shoulder, Bucky let himself go.

Not entirely, however. He still stuck to his rule that he wouldn’t kill anyone; it was the only thought resonating in his head as he defended Sam and Zemo from the onslaught. The Winter Soldier would have snapped necks, bashed heads in, choked the men to death, and left bodies in a sea of blood and gore and mangled bones -  but that wasn’t who Bucky was anymore.

And while his heart was pounding, and he had fallen back on his fighting instincts and descended into a mindless red haze, he was able to maintain that control of himself not to go too far.

He heard a loud snap which brought him back to himself, and realised in horror that he’d broken a man’s arm.

Not his neck though he thought. He pushed the man away from him as another man was shoved towards him; it looked awfully like Zemo had deliberately pushed him. Of course he had. The rat.

“Didn’t take much for him to fall back into form,” he heard Zemo say loudly. This caused Bucky to falter just for a moment which allowed his adversary to connect a feeble punch to his jaw.

Fuck Zemo he thought. He was only doing this because of the mission. He was being good, he wasn’t killing anyone and he wasn’t causing any real damage.

He twisted the man’s arm behind his back and shoved him face first down on a table, raised his arm to knock him unconscious… heart pounding against his rib cage as he thought of all the things he’d like to do to Zemo, imagining it was Zemo there he was about to pummel.

And then a hand was laid on his arm, and he stilled and turned his gaze to meet Sam’s eyes, his left hand still wrapped around the throat of the man beneath him.

Bucky didn’t want Sam to see him like this. He never wanted Sam to see him like this. This wasn’t who he was anymore. He wanted to let go of the man beneath him, wanted to leave this place and disappear forever. Fuck Zemo. Fuck Madripoor. Fuck the serum.

He should never have come here.

For a small second he and Sam stared at each other, still keenly aware of their audience. Bucky wanted to open his mouth and say something, but he couldn’t. He just shook his head at Sam, his eyes mentally pleading with him not to do anything, not to say anything.

Zemo then laid his own hand on Bucky’s shoulder and whispered accusingly at Sam:

“Stay in character or the whole bar turns on us.”

Bucky could easily take out everyone in the bar, but the threat wasn’t for him. It was a warning to Sam that if he stepped out of line right now that Bucky would be forced to fight everyone here. Sam got the warning and removed his hand.

Zemo said something in unintelligible Russian once again. Bucky got the hint and released the man from his metal grip. The man gasped and slid from the table and onto the floor.

“Selby will see you now,” the barman told them, now that the fighting was clearly over.

Bucky was aware that there were phones aimed towards him. No doubt the whole dark web would be filled of video evidence that ‘The Winter Soldier’ was back on the scene within minutes. He wondered how much Sam had already reported back about this mission and whether this was going to cause trouble for him in the future.

How on Earth was he going to explain this to Christina?

“You good?” Sam asked him as Zemo turned to follow the barman. All eyes were still on them and Bucky could tell that Sam was itching to say more but fortunately he had the sense not to.

After all this… they had to leave here with the information they needed. Otherwise this would all be for nothing.

Bucky spared Sam a small nod but that was all he could risk with their audience, before getting into line behind Zemo and following him up the stairs.

Selby was not someone Bucky recognised, although that didn’t mean they’d never met before of course. It just meant that if they did, it was one of the many memories of his experiences that remained lost to him.

A middle aged woman, who looked roughly in her late 50s or early 60s; although with the blip it was almost impossible to tell how old people were now. She was surrounded by body guards, armed to the teeth whose attention all snapped towards Bucky.

Meanwhile Selby appeared to pay him no attention at all, apart from one slightly curious glance as he’d entered, before casually addressing Zemo.

The two of them clearly had some history together, Bucky noted. Not entirely a positive history either, given how tense Zemo was and Selby’s obvious enjoyment of his discomfort.

Selby spared Sam only a passing glace.

“You’re smaller than I remembered,” she commented.

She knows! Bucky immediately thought. That comment had to have been deliberate.

Of course she had to know. Her bar had a drink named after the man for Christ’s sake! What had Zemo been thinking?

And yet Selby hadn’t ordered her guards to attack them. If she did know Sam was a fake, then she was at least still willing to hear what Zemo had to say.

Zemo told Selby about the serum, and that they were looking for the man who made it. Zemo piled Selby with flattery.

“The Power Broke is a nobody; the whole city knows you’re the real queen of Madripoor,” he told her. She practically preened at the comment.

“What do you know about the super-soldier serum?” Zemo asked her.

Selby smiled a large, knowing smile which revealed her over large teeth, and ignored his question.

“Tell me,” she said, sitting back comfortably in her chair, “how you got him,” she gestured towards Bucky. “Last I heard the Soldier got tamed, neutered.”

What a horrible way of saying fixed Bucky thought. As though being freed from the Winter Soldier was something negative forced upon him; something that weakened him, something taken away from him.

“I got him under my thumb once before,” Zemo said, alluding to Berlin in 2016, “it wasn’t difficult to do so again. He fell into line like that –” he snapped his fingers. “Civilian life didn’t suit him; he was practically pleading for me to take control.”

Bucky hoped beyond hope that Sam wouldn’t react to any of this. It was easy for him to remain unresponsive – he’d had decades of this, of remaining steadfast and stoic while people talked about him like he wasn’t there. But Sam could be goaded by Zemo’s words into reacting and Bucky couldn’t see from his position how Sam was taking this. This situation was precarious enough without Sam overreacting.

“Tell me what you know about the super-solder serum,” Zemo said, pulling himself to his feet and walking over towards Bucky, “and I give you him.” He laid his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and turned him to face Selby head on. The change in his vantage point meant he could now see Sam’s face clearly, and he regretted that as it reminded him of what Sam had just witnessed downstairs by the bar.

“And the words to control him, of course,” Zemo added.

Selby finally looked interested. All this time so far she had been playing games and enjoying herself, but now – this had got her attention. She joined Zemo and slowly circled Bucky, looking him up and down.

Again, this was not unusual behaviour. People had often sized him up, appraised him. He knew what was expected of him. Look tough, look domineering and strong, yet at the same time compliant.

“Why would you give up the Winter Soldier?” she asked Zemo suspiciously as she continued to slowly circle around Bucky. “What’s the trick?”

Zemo still had his hands on Bucky’s shoulders.

“No trick,” he said. “With the serum I can make many soldiers. I have all Hydra’s information about the super-soldier programme. I can make it work with the help of my friend here.’ He lifted a hand to point at Sam. Bucky could see that Sam looked uneasy, but with Selby’s attention drawn to him he squared his shoulders and nodded.

Selby still looked suspicious, Zemo clearly had more bluffing to do in order to sell this to her.

“With the code words,” Zemo said, stroking a finger down the side of Bucky’s face, “he will do anything you want.” He caressed Bucky’s chin.

It took every ounce of self-control Bucky had to prevent himself from reacting to this. His heart picked up speed but he somehow managed to keep his breathing under control. He was certain his eyes must have widened at Zemo’s words but fortunately Selby wasn’t looking at his eyes, she was focused on Zemo’s hand’s invading Bucky’s space and touching him far too intimately to be comfortable.

The implication was clear, and Bucky hoped beyond hope that Sam didn’t pick up on it. Selby clearly did – after all Zemo’s meaning was clear. You had a mind controlled human who had to do whatever it was his owner wanted him to do – the message clearly outlined by Zemo’s finger now casually stoking his cheek suggestively.

What did Zemo know? Bucky wondered. Zemo had spent years researching the Winter Soldier, what did his research tell him? Zemo must know what had happened in the 90s. Did he also know about General Markarov? Did he know about Rumlow?

Did he know if there’d been any others who’d taken advantage of his mind controlled state? Did he have more knowledge of Bucky’s life than Bucky did himself?

Or was this all bluster? Maybe Zemo was simply clutching at straws, trying desperately to sell this to Selby. Maybe Selby was a known sexual degenerate who would take pleasure out of degrading and using a man who couldn’t say no and Zemo was just saying whatever he thought would get her to take the bait.

Maybe Bucky was reading too much into this. Maybe Zemo had no idea of what he was implying. Maybe all he was doing was simply demonstrating to Selby that here was the Winter Soldier and he’s under my control. He could be yours too.

He wanted to see Sam’s reaction, to gauge his thoughts, to see if he was reaching these implications, but even though he was looking right at Sam’s direction his vision was oddly blurry and he found he couldn’t focus. He continued to stare straight ahead, unmoving, unblinking feeling like an animal on display at a market.  

“Tempting… tempting…” Selby said, now getting very close to Bucky herself. Bucky forced himself not to react to the stench of her perfume as she leaned over towards him. Zemo stepped back and Bucky suddenly felt very exposed in a way he hadn’t been before.

Selby cautiously echoed Zemo’s earlier movements with her finger, tracing it lightly down the side of his face, as if worried he might bite. In the periphery of his vision Bucky could see one of her armed guards had a gun pointed towards him. It was almost laughable. He could kill her in an instant and the gunman before they’d even noticed what had happened. He suddenly realised how tense he was. Ready in a single moment at Zemo’s instruction to leap forward and kill everyone in this room.

No – disarm and detain everyone in this room. Not kill.

He was feeling light headed and confused.

“… would be poetic,” he heard Selby say. “After all, the Winter Soldier was single handily responsible for weakening Madripoor in the early years of the Millennium. Did you know that?” she asked Zemo, who nodded. Bucky held himself back from frowning under such intense scrutiny. So he must have been in Madripoor at some point as the Winter Soldier. In the 2000s – so after he’d been brought to America. And Zemo knew this. Or was he just nodding in pretence?

Bucky’s confusion grew even further. His mind raced, all the while trying to remain stoic and calm. He needed something to happen. He needed to get all these eyes off him. He could feel buzzing and white noise inside his head, and the familiar screaming was starting to build up from within. This needed to end. He needed this to stop. He tried telegraphing this to Zemo but the other man wasn’t looking at him, deliberately avoiding his eyes.

“Madripoor was set to become a world power,” Selby continued, talking to herself more than to anyone else in the room. “We were building nuclear weapons, we were all set to have real global impact, and the Americans sent him in. In less than a week our power was gone and we had to rebuild from scratch.”

“Hydra didn’t want competition,” Zemo remarked.

“America didn’t want competition,” she corrected him.

“How poetic indeed,” Zemo then confirmed, “that the one responsible for Madripoor’s destabilisation should perhaps be the one who helps build it back up again. With you as its ruler, perhaps.”

“Yes…” Selby said, her finger now playing in circles round Bucky’s mouth.

“Nagal is the man you want,” she said, her gaze still fixed on Bucky. “He’s here in Madripoor, he has a laboratory.”

Bucky almost let out a breath of relief, but managed to hold it in. There, he thought, they’d got what they came for. This was all worth it in the end. Time to leave.

“Where is Nagal?” Zemo asked.

“Give me control,” Selby demanded. “The crumbs you get for free but the shop will cost you. Give me the code words.”

She leaned ever closer and Bucky could feel her breath on his cheek and wasn’t sure if he was imagining the press of her lips.

The screaming was blazing in his head right now, and he didn’t know how he could even hear what was being said over all the noise. Every instinct in him was screaming at him to run, but he stayed still, waiting for some instruction from Zemo.

“That’s it!” Bucky heard a shout, “That’s enough! No more!”

It was Sam, Sam coming to rescue him, stepping forward and grabbing Selby by the shoulder to pull her back.

“Shoot them!” Selby screamed.

And then her head exploded.

For a moment there was silence, and everything was still. No-one reacted.

Her body slumped to the floor, blood and flesh and bits of brain congealing around her.

Bucky looked around wildly, trying to locate the person who had blown Selby’s brain to bits.

It took him less than a second to appraise the situation. No-one in the room had killed her. Sam and Zemo didn’t have guns. None of the men with guns had fired. It was from outside.

Bucky threw himself forward and pushed Sam out of sight of the window in case there were further shots.

And this seemed to trigger everyone else in the room into action.

Someone fired. Automatically and with lightening reflexes Bucky deflected the bullet with his left arm before launching himself at the man and wrestling the gun from him. As the man hit the floor, now unconscious, Bucky aimed his gun and shot another man’s hand, making him drop the gun that was aimed at Zemo.

Bucky could see that Sam was tackling a third man, managing to disarm him with ease before knocking him to the ground where he stayed, moaning.

Bucky paused for a moment.

My God, Sam’s a good fighter, he thought as he watched Sam take on a second man with ease. Sam had technique. He had skill. Even outnumbered and taking on men with weapons, he was clearly dominating.

Bucky knocked out the last man and Zemo quickly ushered them out towards a back entrance.

“We’re in trouble now,” Zemo said. “We’ve got to move. Abandon your weapons, and follow me. Quickly now.”

Bucky dropped his gun immediately and they took off, sprinting down the back streets of Madripoor, with angry people hot on their heels, desperate for vengeance.

It would have been easy to vanish, Bucky thought. To just take off and get to safety. But he had to stay with Sam. He didn’t care what happened to Zemo, - they had everything they needed now to carry on the mission without him, but there was no way he would be leaving Sam behind.

“I can’t run in these damn heels!” Sam shouted behind him and Bucky slowed his pace to allow Sam to overtake as shots were fired.

“You sure know how to draw attention to yourselves,” a female voice spoke and Bucky whirled his head around to see a hooded figure beckon to them from a dark alleyway. She had a gun pointed at them.

Bucky was about to throw himself at her but then she pulled down the hood, revealing her identity and Bucky heard Sam take a sharp intake of breath.

“Sharon?” Sam gasped, his disbelief evident.

The woman shot two men who had followed them and suddenly Bucky realised who she was.

He’d seen her in 2016; she was the one who’d given the shield back to Steve before sharing an unbelievably awkward kiss with him. That had been… uncomfortable.

Sharon Carter. Peggy Carter’s niece or grand-niece or something.

That was weird as Hell. Sometime later, in Wakanda, Bucky had asked Steve about her and Steve had told him about who she was and even then, with his addled brain, Bucky found the whole situation to be incredibly messy. He supposed it was grief that had brought them together. Peggy Carter had recently died and Steve found comfort in her niece?

But she was an ally, apparently, or she was right now – whatever she was doing in Madripoor, and they desperately needed allies. So when she offered to take them to a place in High Town they quickly took her up on the offer.

But Bucky was suspicious. Not only was she Peggy Carter’s niece or whatever, but she’d worked for SHIELD and, by proxy, Hydra, she’d been a spy and a double crosser and she had made a life for herself in Madripoor.  

Madripoor is a hive of scum and villainy Zemo had said.

There’s no-one good in Madripoor. They’re all liars, and thieves and murderers. Sharon would be no exception he was sure. After all, as Zemo said: when in Madripoor...

She might be helping them now, but Bucky wasn’t going to be trusting her easily, no matter how much Steve had. After all, Steve had trusted Peggy hadn’t he?

Look how that had turned out.

Chapter 33: When in Madripoor... Part Three

Notes:

Content warning: Not too much to warn about, Bucky's being a little self-destructive. There's some sexual language (not much) and talking about drug use.

When in Madripoor… Part Three 

 

Sharon led them through the city to her place in Hightown – the part of the city which was populated by Madripoor’s wealthy elite. The polar opposite to the grubby, impoverished Lowtown, but still filled with criminals – just of a different type. Instead of the gangs, petty feuds, pick-pocketing, and knife crime that filled the streets of Lowtown, Hightown housed a higher class of criminal.

Sharon provided a perfect example of this by casually admitting to her involvement in dealing stolen art on the Black Market as she led them through what appeared to be an art gallery.

Under different circumstances, Bucky might have mocked the shocked and appalled expression on Sam's face as he listened to Sharon casually confess her participation in one of the most lucrative, unregulated markets in the world. But Bucky was still feeling shaky from his experience in Selby’s bar and all wanted was to put this whole horrid mess as far behind him as possible.

Sharon took them through the art gallery and up several flights of stairs and ushered them into a small suite of rooms. She said they could stay as long as they needed. She waved a hand towards several enormous wardrobes and invited them to help themselves to a change of clothes. Bucky made a beeline for them, finally relieved to have the opportunity to take this horrible outfit off.

He desperately needed to change out of his clothes. He did not want to spend even a second longer than he had to with the metaphorical stench of the Winter Soldier still clinging to him. Bucky grabbed the first items of clothing that looked like they might fit and would cover the metal arm and then rifled through the drawers, hoping to find some gloves.

Sam, meanwhile, was taking his time, still asking Sharon questions about how she had ended up in Madripoor. Bucky continued his futile search for gloves while she explained what had happened to her since they’d last met in 2016.

“I didn’t have the Avengers backing me up,” she said, sounding resentful. “I can’t go home; I’d be arrested if I did. My own father doesn’t even know that I’m alive. And what are you doing with him?” Bucky halted his search briefly and looked over to see Sharon pointing at Zemo who was regarding her with an expression of curious interest.

“He’s helping us,” Sam said, in a tone that suggested that he didn’t actually believe what he was saying.

“Does he know what happens to people who help you?” Sharon asked provocatively.

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. I really am, but Steve and I had to go on the run as well. It wasn’t just you. We couldn’t do very much…”

Sharon glared daggers at Sam.

“And look where you are now,” she practically hissed, “while I’m still in exile. You’re okay. Even he’s okay.”

Bucky glanced over and saw Sharon pointing at him. He didn’t want to get dragged into this discussion, which he suspected could soon turn into a blazing argument. What he wanted was to get into some decent clothes, cover his metal arm, and then ideally destroy the Winter Soldier outfit.

But he was stuck. It had suddenly occurred to him while he was finding something to wear that he couldn’t actually take off his clothes without some assistance. He had those damn straps buckled up tight behind his back and he’d need to ask Sam for some help to get them undone. But Sam was dealing with a furious Sharon, and he wanted to avoid asking for help in front of her. Bucky backed away from the wardrobe, clutching his chosen clothes to his chest, and hovered uncertainly to the side as Sam and Sharon continued their heated discussion about who had had it worse between them.

He’d just decided that it didn’t matter, that he could just rip the whole thing off buckles and all, when Zemo approached him and, without a word, undid the buckles for him. Bucky was surprised when Zemo not only seemed to understand his thoughts but also offered help without any sarcastic comments. Bucky dithered for a moment, wondering if he should thank him, but found that he was too shocked to speak.

Zemo then reached into the deep pockets of his luxurious coat and pulled out Bucky’s gloves and phone and piled them on top of the clothes in Bucky’s arms before stepping away to continue to observe the growing argument between Sam and Sharon.

Bucky stared at Zemo for a moment, his mind frantically trying to make sense of the enigma that was the other man. Zemo was such a hard man to read, it was hard to figure out his motivations. What was he playing at? Had he been genuinely trying to help, or was this just more manipulation?

There was also the possibility that Zemo had tried to look through his phone, Bucky realised, but he had it password protected, along with facial recognition, so even if Zemo had tried, Bucky felt fairly confident he’d have failed.

Maybe Zemo was just trying to be considerate and helpful. Unlikely. He doubted Zemo did anything without some ulterior motive.

Feeling confused, Bucky headed into one of the bedrooms to get changed, relieved to get away from Sharon and Sam’s heated discussion. Behind him he heard Sharon shouting about ‘saving his arse from his arse’ and he just knew that if he had stayed, he’d end up being dragged into their argument.

He felt a lot more human once he was back in normal clothes. He pulled on his gloves, feeling extraordinarily grateful to Zemo for having the foresight to bring them with him. Bucky toyed for a moment with the idea of turning on his phone, but ultimately he decided against it. He just knew there would be some message from Christina on there, and he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to manage a conversation with her. There was also the chance that Yori might have messaged him, as he’d kept the same telephone number with his new phone, and he didn’t think he could cope with that either right now. He left the phone switched off and shoved it into a pocket, before taking a deep breath and heading back to re-join the other three.

The atmosphere was calmer now, at least. With no concern for privacy, Sam stood shirtless as he rummaged through the wardrobe. Bucky let his eyes linger for a second on Sam’s toned, muscled body before he sat down heavily on the sofa and stared gloomily in the other direction, feeling slightly sick.

Sam had been there, he thought, listening to every word that Zemo had said in the bar. He had seen Zemo stroke his cheek, seen Selby leer all over him. What on earth would Sam think of him now?

That he was broken, Bucky thought. That’s what Sam would think. Broken beyond repair. How could have thought that there could ever be anything between him and Sam? He was just too messed up, all over. Every part of him was damaged and tainted in some way.

Zemo sat opposite him and caught his eye, and Bucky quickly transferred his gaze to the ceiling so that he wouldn’t have to look at him, remembering the touch of Zemo’s fingers running down his face and stroking his chin, the smug smile he’d given Selby and the words:

He will do anything you want

He couldn’t stop it from replaying over and over in his mind. The smell of Selby’s pungent perfume, the feeling of her breath as she leaned over him, the look of triumph in her eyes as she considered the prospect of actually having the Winter Soldier under her command.

Bucky felt his right hand clench into a tight fist, digging his nails so deeply into the palm of his hand that he was sure it must have drawn blood. The pain brought him back out of his head at least and he quickly shoved his right hand under his leg, hoping Zemo hadn’t noticed. When he looked over at Zemo, he could see that the other man was concentrating hard on Sharon and Sam, and he quickly took the opportunity to wipe his hand on the leg of his trousers.

Sam was now telling Sharon about Nagal and promising to get her a pardon if she helped them. Bucky wondered idly if Sam actually had the power to do that. If he’d accepted the mantle of Captain America, certainly he would have done, but just as he was? But then Sam was friends with Colonel Rhodes, one of the President’s close advisers, so maybe…

Thinking about this at least kept his brain from thinking about Selby, so that was good. He had to keep his mind occupied with other things.

“Nagal works for the power broker,” Sharon said with a heavy sigh, finally agreeing to help them despite her anger and resentment. “I’ll see what I can find out about him.”

Sam thanked her profusely and once again promised her he would get her a pardon so she could get her old life back.

“There’s been an auction here tonight,” she said before she left. “There’s an after-party on the 2nd floor. You’re welcome to join it. No-one here will attack you – this isn’t like Lowtown. Or you can stay here. Your choice.”

Without uttering another word, she left, leaving the three men alone. The room filled with an awkward silence, and Bucky desperately wanted to leave. A party, Sharon said. That meant noise and crowds, and alcohol. In Madripoor it probably also meant drugs, even in Hightown. At the very least he could probably get someone to give him a cigarette. That would be perfect, he thought, to drown himself in alcohol and have his thoughts covered up by loud music and the clamour of people trying to make themselves heard over all the noise.

“We should stay here,” Sam said. “lie low and wait for Sharon to tell us where to find Nagal. We’ve made enough spectacle here already.”

Bucky shook his head.

“Let’s go join the party,” he said. “I want to let off some steam.”

Zemo backed him up, and while Sam attempted to change his mind, Bucky was adamant that he would go to the party with or without Sam, and Sam relented.

The party was just as Bucky had expected it to be: a cacophony of noise, and flashing lights, and a crowd of people so large that it would be easy to get lost within it. Sam shouted at Zemo to stay with them as Bucky headed towards the bar. Bucky asked for the strongest alcohol they had and to ‘keep them coming’. Sam eyed Bucky’s glass critically but said nothing. Instead, he took out his phone and started scrolling through it.

“Shit!” he shouted at Bucky. “I got to call my sister,” he mimed making a phone call with his free hand.

Bucky nodded and drained his glass in a single gulp.

“Keep an eye on Zemo,” Sam shouted over the music. “Don’t lose him. I gotta go somewhere quiet.”

Bucky nodded and glanced around as Sam departed. His sniper eyes quickly picked out Zemo, who had joined the throng of dancers. He looked like he was having the time of his life, throwing himself into dancing like he didn’t have a care in the world. He didn’t think there was much likelihood of Zemo taking off – this was as much Zemo’s quest as it was Sam and Bucky’s. There was little chance of Zemo going awol until they’d successfully located the serum and destroyed any chance of it being recreated again.

Bucky downed his second glass and reached for the third. The alcohol wasn’t working to quieten the thoughts whirling around in his brain. He should have known better. He’d come to the party hoping to drown out all the noise in his head – all that Winter Soldier horribleness. All those memories of death and blood and everything else that the evening's events had reawakened within him. All these thoughts continued to spin round and round his brain as he stared blankly at Zemo.

Didn’t take much for him to fall back into form

Zemo had said that earlier when they were attacked at Selby's bar. Bucky recalled Sam’s expression when he’d laid a hand on Bucky’s arm to get him to stop – one of concern, worry and… maybe there’d also been some fear there?

It hadn’t been the first time he’d seen that look on Sam’s face. Back when Sam had called him emotionally vulnerable and Bucky had forcibly dragged Sam out of his apartment and thrown him out, there’d been that exact same look on Sam’s face. A wariness. Maybe not overt fear, but there’d definitely been alarm, a look of shocked horror in Sam’s eyes.

This was yet another reminder to Bucky that the Winter Soldier was still there, just simmering under the surface, even though the trigger words had long gone. Hadn’t he said as much to Christina once?

It’s a part of me. The darkness within.

It was there plain as day. Zemo could see it.

Something is still in there, I think

Of course Sam could see it as well. No matter how hard Bucky tried to leave the Winter Soldier behind, he’d never really be able to. After all, the Winter Soldier was just an extension of Bucky himself.

I was always capable. I still am. I did things before I became the Winter Soldier that I sometimes wish had remained erased from my memory.  

God, Bucky wanted to get drunk so badly. To drink so much that he could forget all his worries and then pass out somewhere and actually get a good night’s sleep for once. But of course he couldn’t do that because of the serum.

Bucky felt an itch deep within – he felt restless and antsy, and had a crawling urge to do something reckless that he was certain he would regret.

Bucky knew what was happening to him. It was the same pattern as it had always been. Intrusive thoughts followed by a compulsive self-destructive behaviour. This was something he and Christina had been talking about since the early days of his therapy. He had learned how to recognise this. He had learned how to manage this. All those coping strategies that he and Christina had been working on together in order to deal with the invasive thoughts.

It had been months since he had felt this way, ever since he had learned strategies to manage the self-destructive behaviours.

But right now, he didn’t want to manage them. He wanted to go absolutely crazy. He wanted to do all the things that he used to do after getting out of the Raft, the ‘maladaptive coping mechanisms’, as Christina put it. Back when he would trawl the problem areas of Brooklyn, looking for men to lose himself with, a quick fuck, someone to give him pain and punishment, and to take a cocktail of the strongest substances he could find in order to find any release from the constant turmoil inside his head.

He knew he should get Zemo, find Sam, and suggest they leave. Then he should speak to Sam and tell him he wasn’t okay and that he needed help. When it was a good time, he should ring Christina and talk everything through with her.

 

That was what he should do. He should stop the negative thought processes and behaviours in their tracks before they ended up taking him down a terrible and self-destructive path.

But just like the times in those early days, he just knew that he didn’t want to be stopped. Back before Christina could trust him to call for help, back when she had to set her babysitters on him to make sure he didn’t do stupid things. Back in the days when he would hide a knife under the couch in case he needed to attack himself.

 

Bucky needed to do something crazy; otherwise he was going to go crazy from all the thoughts whirling round and round in his brain. He needed the thoughts to stop. He needed to forget.

And Bucky’s eyes had cast upon a couple of likely candidates. He’d seen a few unsavoury looking men since he’d sat down at the bar; men acting suspiciously, obviously passing out drugs, going off together. In a gathering like this, it wouldn't be hard to find someone quickly who could give him what he needed while Sam was busy.

So instead of doing the sensible thing of finding Sam and telling him that he was currently experiencing an internal mental crisis, he instead downed his third – or was it forth? – drink and then slipped through the crowd to find someone who he could lose himself and his thoughts with for a few moments.

It only took Sam less than fifteen minutes to track him down. Bucky hadn’t even had the chance to take any of the pills from the man he’d convinced to join him out on a balcony where there were fewer people mingling. The other man - Dirk or Derek or Dwight or something - had been too preoccupied with sticking his tongue down Bucky's throat rather than providing Bucky with what he actually wanted.

Bucky had expected to have a bit more time before Sam returned, so it was a shock when someone suddenly pulled Dwight (or whatever his name was) away from him, and it took Bucky a moment to realise what had happened.

“I don’t fucking believe this!”

Sam was furious.

“Get on!” Sam shouted at the other man who bid a hasty retreat.

“What on earth are you playing at!?” Sam’s voice grew louder with every word and Bucky tried to speak, to find some excuse, to calm Sam down but he was completely struck dumb. He’d never seen Sam like this. Sam was positively raging. He didn’t think such a thing was actually possible. Sam was always so in control of himself.

Sam stepped forward and then halted and looked down. Bucky felt his heart leap when he realised Sam had trod on a small bag full of pills that the other man must have dropped in his haste to leave.

Sam picked up the bag and turned to Bucky, his face like thunder.

“Did you take these?” Sam asked, his voice quieter now but no less hard and cold, and accusing.

Bucky shook his head. “No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t get the chance –“

He cut himself off and winced at his own stupidity. Sam's anger was unsettling, making it difficult for Bucky to think and find the right words. He watched as Sam flung the small bag off the balcony.

 “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Sam said. “I don’t fucking believe this…”

Sam was no puritan. There were times he used foul language and swear words. Perhaps not to the same extent as Bucky, but definitely more than Steve. But Bucky had never heard Sam swear with such vitriol and anger. The look on Sam’s face as well – his eyes cold and hard, his mouth a tight line, and the little wrinkles that appeared as Sam glared at him. It was a look that Bucky had never seen before.

Oh God, he’d fucked up. His stomach lurched as it suddenly hit him what he had been doing, what Sam had walked in on. If Sam had been a few minutes later…

Bucky shuddered.

What on Earth had possessed him to think that any of this had been a good idea?

He’d fucked up before, but never this badly.

He remained mute, too struck dumb to defend himself, to give excuses. He had no idea what he could say that could make this situation less terrible.

He felt Sam grab his arm and provided no resistance as Sam led him off the balcony, through the thronging crowds in the hall, and forced him back up the stairs to the suite of rooms that Sharon had put aside for them.

Once there, Sam flung him down on the couch. Bucky quickly looked around the room to see that it was empty. No Sharon. No Zemo. Thank God.

“What the almighty hell are you playing at, Bucky?” Sam’s rage was still palpable; it hadn’t lessened at all the time it had taken them to get back here.

Bucky opened his mouth to reply, although he had no idea what nonsense was about to come rushing out, but Sam raised a hand and spoke over him.

 “Don’t you dare,” Sam hissed at him. “I am so angry at you right now, you have no idea!”

Bucky closed his mouth, and lowered his gaze, feeling chastened and guilty.

“I genuinely cannot remember a time when I have been more furious in my life,” Sam continued. “I have had it up to here with you!” he raised his right arm above his head and his voice grew ever louder as the words shot out of him. “You have dragged me into this fucking situation with an insane psychopath who you broke out of prison. You keep making plans without telling me anything, even colluding with that criminal Zemo without telling me until the last minute. We have no back up, we now have a massive bounty on our heads, and oh yes! We almost got killed today. And what do I find you doing!? Messing around with some dodgy drug dealer.”

Sam shook his head, looking absolutely disgusted.

“You absolute sodding masochist,” he practically spat the words at Bucky, who winced, feeling the words as knives stabbing into him all over.

“Sam, don’t…” Bucky finally found his voice, and was shocked at how small and quiet he sounded.

“It’s fine…” Bucky continued, trying to sound convincing, “I’m fine…”

“In no universe is this fine!” Sam glared at him. “What were you thinking!?”

Bucky shook his head and didn’t answer. His heart pounded against his ribcage and he wanted to leap up, leap up and defend himself from Sam’s fury, but he remained seated as if he were rendered completely paralysed.

Sam pointed a finger at Bucky. “You. Are. Not. Fine,” he ground out slowly. He then took a step back and stared down at Bucky, still seated on the couch where Sam had pushed him, and looked at him with a disapproving look on his face.

“You’re going home tomorrow,” Sam said firmly.

Bucky’s eyes widened. “What!?” he asked, not believing his ears.

“You’re not ready for this,” Sam said. “I should have known better.” Sam turned away and Bucky leapt to his feet, grabbing Sam by the arm, taking care not to be too forceful, and pulled him back to face him.

“No,” Bucky pleaded, “no. Don’t send me back. I’m fine, I need to help. I can do this. I can. I promise.”

Sam brushed Bucky’s arm away.

“No, you can’t,” Sam said.

“Sam, I can’t go back to Brooklyn,” Bucky continued to beg, utterly debasing himself. “I just can’t. Not now. Not after all this, not when we’re so close.”

Sam shook his head.

“This isn’t fun for me either,” Bucky said. “You think I’m enjoying this? You think I liked being paraded around earlier as Zemo auctioned me off to that horrible woman? You think I enjoyed fighting all those men at Zemo’s command?”

“No, I don’t think that,” Sam said, and Bucky was envious of how calm and steady Sam managed to keep his voice as he spoke. “But there’s something weird going on with how pally you and Zemo are together. I don’t like it.”

“I’m trying to do the right thing,” the words poured out of Bucky so fast and he was aware that he was babbling as he frantically tried to find the right words to say that would make everything right.

“I keep fucking up,” he said, “again and again and again. I know I do. But it doesn’t mean I can’t cope. I can cope fine. It’s just…”

The images from Selby’s bar flashed back into his mind. Standing there to attention as Selby slowly circled round him, the look of greed on her face, Zemo refusing to meet Bucky’s eye was Bucky was desperately trying to get Zemo to realise that he needed this to stop.

But then Sam had stepped forward, pulled Selby away from him. Sam could tell that Bucky needed rescuing and he’d stepped up to the plate, even knowing that it would put them all in danger and jeopardise the mission. He’d done that for Bucky.

“God, Sam,” Bucky whispered, “I liked you. I like you so much I…”

Bucky sat back down with a thud, and wiped a shaking hand across his eyes.

“I liked Howard too, you know?” he continued in a shaky voice. “I even told him once but we never brought it up again.” Bucky stared blankly at the floor as he spoke. “He said in an interview that he barely knew me but he was lying, and I don’t know why he lied. At times he was closer to me than Steve was. He made the world and the universe seem so big and fascinating and exciting. He talked about robots and flying cars and aliens and my god I liked him so much. He said the 21^st century is going to be an amazing place Bucky, and you and I will live to see it.”

He felt Sam sit down next to him on the couch and he closed his eyes, feeling all sorts of shame and humiliation but he couldn’t stop the words from coming out. He never told anyone these things. Not Steve. Not even Christina, not all of it.

“He saved my life so many times back then,” Bucky said. “He kept me going when sometimes all I wanted was to put a bullet through my own brain. He did all that for me, and for what?”

“Bucky,” Sam said slowly, “this has nothing to do with what’s going on right now.”

“I murdered him, Sam. I saw the fucking tape of me bashing his head in. I saw myself on camera strangle his wife after she watched her husband die. Do you know how I saw that tape?”

He opened his eyes and looked at Sam, waiting for a response. Sam shook his head, completely silent now, his face ashen.

“Zemo played it to me,” Bucky said, and his voice shook and crack as he spoke and it was an effort to keep going. “He played the whole thing and there was no way to stop it. And Howard’s son was right there watching as well…”

“Oh,” Sam said, with the air of someone suddenly making a realisation. “That’s what happened in Siberia, Steve never told me all the details.”

“I don’t want to be here Sam,” Bucky said. “I don’t want to be with Zemo when he reminds me of all the terrible things I’ve done. I’m not pally with him. I don’t trust him. I didn’t want to dress up as the Winter Soldier and I was terrified the entire time that I would lose control of myself and cause someone real harm or even kill someone. I’m doing these things because I’m trying to do the right thing, for once.”

He fell silent, completely run out of steam, unable to say any more. He stared at his hands, and waited for Sam to speak.

Sam leaned his head back against the sofa and took a deep breath, and then he stood back up.

“This is my fault,” Sam said, “not yours. I’m the one responsible for you and I let things get too far. I let myself believe that you were ready for this, that you were well enough, but it’s clear that you’re not.”

Bucky’s vision blurred as Sam spoke. This was the worst possible situation to be in; this was worse than anything else Sam had said to him this evening in his anger. He’d tried so hard to make Sam see he was better, and he’d failed. He’d made no progress at all.

“Tomorrow we’re all going back,” Sam said decisively. “We’re taking Zemo back to prison, and I’ll take full responsibility for everything. Then you’re staying home, you’re going back to therapy, and I’ll join up with Walker to see this through to the end.”

Bucky shook his head. But he couldn’t say anything because if he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from falling apart completely.  

“Bucky,” Sam said calmly and gently, and Bucky looked over at him with damp eyes.

“This is bringing up a lot of negative feelings and emotions for you,” Sam said carefully. “You’re too close to this.”

God, that’s what Christina had said.

“And that’s why I have to make sure you get home,” Sam continued. “You need to work this through with Dr Raynor. This mission is not worth jeopardising your mental health. You understand that, don’t you?”

Sam speaking about emotions and feelings and mental health… the words prodded Bucky’s brain, and he had a feeling that there was something important, something he’d forgotten.

And then suddenly it came to him in a blinding flash of realisation.

“My pills,” he breathed. “Oh, my God.”

He hadn’t taken them for ages. Not deliberately – they’d just completely slipped his mind as he’d been so focused on the mission.

Sam’s brow furrowed.

“What pills?”

Bucky hadn’t wanted Sam to know about the medication. It was all linked to that horrible phone call they’d had, when Sam had rung him to talk about the shield and Bucky had yelled at him and one thing led to another and Bucky had ended up in hospital because he’d tried to kill himself.

But he needed to tell Sam something as this might help fix some of this mess a little bit.

"Some loony psychiatrist put me on some medication once," he explained, refusing to make eye contact with Sam as he felt embarrassed to admit that he had needed medication.

“They don’t do anything,” he said quickly. “Or rather… I thought they didn’t. I think I might have been wrong.”

He’d noticed his moods had been all over the place recently. Swinging from one emotion to another with lightning speed. He’d put it down to the adrenaline and all the drama and excitement. Nerves and stress.

Could it be that the medication actually worked? Could he feel the effects that quickly after not taking them?

“I’ve not been taking them,” Bucky explained.

Sam sat back down.

“What medication is it?” he asked.

Bucky shook his head. He didn’t want Sam to know everything. It was too humiliating, when he’d been so desperate to get Sam to see how much better he was doing.

“All-right then,” Sam said, not pressing any further for which Bucky was grateful. “When did you last take them?”

Bucky thought back.

“That morning we went to Germany the first time,” he said. “The day we learned about the Flag Smashers and met Walker.”

“God, Bucky,” Sam sounded exasperated. “That was almost two weeks ago!”

“It wasn’t deliberate,” Bucky said, his voice raising in an attempt to justify himself. “I have them with me,” he said. “I picked them up with my other stuff when we were getting ready to see Zemo. They’re on Zemo’s plane; I just forgot to take them.”

Sam just stared at him, a look of complete and utter exhaustion on his face. Bucky felt the same way.

“That’s it, then,” Bucky said quickly, feeling as though he’d found the perfect solution. “I just need to go back and take them. I can do that tomorrow, and I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Bucky,” Sam said.

“But you’re wrong,” Bucky said desperately. “You’re wrong about me not being well enough. I am. It’s because of the pills that I’m like this. Christina said they stop the mood swings and make me better able to control myself when I’m tempted to do reckless things. At least, she said something like that.”

Sam didn’t look convinced, and he was quiet for several long minutes. Bucky sat in silence, watching him, and waiting. Wondering if he’d managed to say the right things. Wondering if this had convinced Sam to allow him to stay.

Finally, Sam stood up and turned to face him. Bucky sat up a little straighter, awaiting Sam’s judgement.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Sam said, his tone clearly indicating that he would brook no further argument.

“You are going to stay right here, in this spot, until the morning,” Sam said.

Bucky nodded.

 “You’re not to go anywhere do you understand?”

Bucky nodded again.

“I am going to get some sleep and in the morning I will ring Dr Raynor,” Sam continued. Bucky felt his heart drop. That wasn’t the path he’d wanted Sam to go down.

“We’re 11 hours ahead here, so it should be fine to call her first thing,” Sam said, checking his phone to make sure that he was correct. “I am going to tell her everything. About Zemo. About the bar. About everything that’s happened this evening, and what you’ve said. If she says you can stay, then you can stay.”

“All-right,” Bucky said slowly, his mind racing. Sam was abdicating the responsibility to make this decision to someone else. That was… fair, actually. It shouldn’t be for Sam to make these big decisions. Other people made these choices for Bucky.

“God,” Sam muttered, “I’ve got to find Zemo. God knows where he’s got to.”

Bucky sank back into the soft cushions, feeling a little less anxious as Sam left. Not the worst situation to be in. Sam accepted that Bucky could continue with the mission. He just wanted to hear from someone above him that it was still okay.

And everything would seem better in the morning, anyway, Bucky thought. Once Sam had got some sleep, and put some distance between the night’s events and all the horrible emotions and feelings. Bucky was certain Sam would be more amenable in the morning.

Bucky needed to talk to Christina before Sam did.

Chapter 34: The Mission Takes Priority

The Mission Takes Priority

 

Bucky stayed sitting where Sam had left him. It didn’t take long for Sam to locate Zemo - only a few minutes passed before Bucky heard the sounds of the two of them returning. Soft murmuring filled the hallway, followed by footsteps and closing doors, until silence took over.

Bucky patiently waited for Sam and Zemo to settle and sleep. Despite feeling restless, he stayed true to his promise to Sam and refrained from moving. He would not give Sam more reasons to be mad at him. He intended to stay put until morning. 

The argument with Sam, as devastating as it was, had removed all the turmoil in his head from earlier. He was no longer thinking about Selby, Zemo, and the Winter Soldier. Now his brain kept tormenting him by replaying over and over the conversation he’d just had with Sam. 

He’d rather have the old thoughts back. They were far better than the image of Sam’s narrowed eyes, his anger and disbelief, looking at Bucky like he didn’t even know who he was anymore. 

Bucky would rather find himself alone with Selby, at the mercy of her sadistic whims than see that look on Sam’s face again. 

After almost an hour passed, Bucky pulled his phone out of his pocket and finally turned it on. By now, Sam and Zemo would surely be asleep. Sam had looked truly exhausted and the last time Zemo had slept had been over 18 hours ago when they were on the plane. Gosh, so much had happened in such a short space of time, he realised. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d sent a message to Christina with his rather useless update.

And there it was. The message he’d sent to her earlier that evening, letting her know that all was fine. She had replied to the message since then - asking him to actually ring her rather than message. 

Bucky checked the time. It was now 3am. It would be late afternoon for Christina. 

He didn’t want to ring her. This would be a conversation rife with minefields, and he had to navigate it perfectly. Remembering the evening's events, he cringed at the thought of explaining everything to her. He’d rather not, but he had to talk to her before Sam did. She had to hear from him about the evening’s events rather than Sam’s exaggerated version.

He had to get her to agree to allow him to stay. That took priority. That was more important than his humiliation and pride.

He pressed the green call button and waited. 

She answered on the third ring. He wasn’t sure whether he felt glad or annoyed that she actually answered.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t bother trying to feign offence at her presumption that something was wrong. He wouldn’t be ringing her if everything was fine. He knew that. She knew that. Why pretend otherwise?

“Sam’s going to ring you in the morning,” he told her. “I mean, in a few hours. It’s 3am here.”

“Where’s here?” she asked him. 

Bucky paused. She hadn't heard anything about them being in Madripoor yet. He recalled all the phones that had been out earlier, presumably recording the Winter Soldier going savage in the bar. It hadn’t trickled down to her yet. 

That was good, but not entirely. Sometimes it was better when she had preexisting knowledge of things: it saved him from having to tell her about it.

“We’re in Madripoor,” he said, “following a lead about the serum.”

She didn’t make a comment about them being in Madripoor. He’d expected a little disapproval about that, and was prepared to launch into an explanation to justify that decision, but she was clearly keen to keep the focus of the conversation on why he was ringing her. He supposed there would be plenty of time for disapproval later.

“And why is Sam going to ring me?” she asked.

“It’s not as bad as he’ll make out,” Bucky said, unable to prevent his voice from sounding sheepish. “I wanted to tell you myself, as I know he’ll blow it all out of proportion.”

“I’ll reserve judgement on that,” she said. 

“Yeah…” Bucky chewed on his lower lip. 

He regretted not considering this conversation more thoroughly before calling Christina. Instead, he’d done his usual thing of diving right into something without thinking about it first. Now they were talking he suddenly realised how difficult it would be to explain the night’s events away and make them sound less worse than they actually were.

“For example…” Bucky said, with a minor flash of inspiration, “Sam will tell you I broke Helmut Zemo out of prison in Germany, but I didn’t.”

“I already know about Zemo,” she said. 

“Sam reported that back already?” Bucky asked. 

“I have no idea what Sam has or hasn’t reported back,” she replied. “But Zemo escaped from prison the same day you both visited him there. I’ve been asked if you’ve told me anything about it.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Well, like I said, I didn’t break him out of prison.”

Plausible deniability , he thought wryly. 

“I’m sure there’s much more to that than you’re telling me,” she remarked, “but I’ll pass that on.”

There then followed a long silence. 

Bucky decided he didn’t like speaking to Christina over the phone. It seemed unnatural. He didn’t like that he couldn’t see her face, couldn’t gauge her thoughts or notice her reactions. They could do a video call, he supposed, but somehow that felt even more alien to him. He traced a spiral pattern on the couch cushions with a metal finger and waited.

“Why is Sam going to ring me?” Christina eventually prompted, when it became obviously apparent that Bucky would not volunteer any more information.

“Um…” Bucky said, brain working frantically to figure out the best way of saying this. “Well, I kind of had a little freak out earlier and it’s got Sam all worried for some reason. He thinks I should come back and I guess he wants your opinion?” His voice rose at the end of the sentence as if he was asking a question. 

“Can you tell me…” she began, but Bucky cut across her, quickly.

“Can you just tell him, when he calls, that it’s okay for me to stay? That’s all he needs to hear. I’m fine, I promise. He’s just panicking for no reason.”

“Did you have a panic attack?” she asked him.

“No!” Bucky said loudly, then quickly froze, ears straining to make sure that there was no sound coming from the bedrooms. The last thing he wanted was for Sam or, god forbid, Zemo overhearing any of this conversation. 

"It wasn't a panic attack," he said, once he was satisfied that Zemo and Sam were still in their rooms, presumably sleeping, his voice becoming quieter now. “Some things happened, and it got me thinking about the past a bit, that’s all. I had a hard time managing my thoughts, so I was tempted to act a bit recklessly, you know, like I used to do. But I didn’t, in the end. Sam found me. And then he just lost it at me and started saying that he was going to send me back and he doesn’t need to.”

“James, you need to give me more detail,” Christina said placidly. “I can’t possibly follow what you’re talking about if you won’t give me a bit more.”

Bucky let out a quiet groan of frustration and quashed the urge to throw his phone out of the window. 

“We had to go undercover earlier this evening,” he finally said, through gritted teeth. “Sam went as some criminal who dressed like a pimp, and I had to pretend to be the Winter Soldier again so we could get the information we needed.”

“I see,” Christina said, her tone neutral, which was a relief. 

“Nothing bad happened,” Bucky said, his confidence bolstered by Christina’s lack of obvious outrage, “It was just a bit of dress up. But it got my brain going a bit crazy, that’s all. And now Sam’s freaked out, but the thing is…”

He hesitated, wondering if he should bring up the medication issue or just let Sam tell Christina about it later. Better to come from him, he thought. He could swing it into something positive. 

“I’ve forgotten to take my meds,” he admitted. “I guess all the excitement just pushed them from my mind and I think that’s why I had some difficulty earlier.” 

He swallowed. It would be difficult, but he had to admit it.

“I guess you were right,” he said, “and the medication does work. I’ve felt a bit off the last few days and I’m sure that’s why. I’ll take them as soon as we get back to the plane and I won’t forget again, I promise.”

“James,” Christina said, and her voice was firm. “I need you to rewind back and give me some more detail. What happened earlier?”

“God, Christina!” Bucky burst out. “It’s not important. Please just tell Sam that I’m fine. I’ll take the pills and that’ll help, right? I understand that they actually work now. I’ll never complain about them again. That’s the reason why I got a little weird earlier. I can do this mission. Christina and I have to. I can’t leave Sam to do this alone. He’ll get hurt or killed and it’ll be my fault.”

“James,” she said, in the same firm level tone, “You’ve told me so much that is already so worrying, and I’m betting it’s not even close to being the whole story.”

“Alright,” Bucky said, forcing his voice to adopt a reasonable ‘look how in control of myself I am’ tone.

“Some men attacked us and I had to fight back,” Bucky said, falling into a mission report mode. “I didn’t seriously hurt anyone. I didn’t kill anyone. I had no weapons and I was fighting in self-defence. I was more there for show. Zemo was pretending that he would pass the Winter Soldier over in exchange for information about the serum, the moment we got the information we needed Sam brought it all to an end. We met with an old friend of Steve’s who has brought us somewhere safe, and tomorrow we’re going to find the man who is making the serum. I’m sure Sam will fill you in on the finer details, but that’s the gist of it.”

“And what happened after that?” Christina asked. “What happened that made Sam so worried?”

Bucky let out a loud sigh.

“I… I just drank a lot of alcohol. I met a guy… I was thinking…” Bucky shook his head and his voice wavered. “It doesn’t matter… Sam found me in time before I could do anything else. I just had a lot of thoughts that I wanted to stop, that’s all.”

“I suppose that performing again as the Winter Soldier brought back a lot of negative associations for you,” Christina said, more of a statement than a question. “And you fell back on your old coping mechanisms in the absence of any healthy way to manage them.”

“Um… yes?” Bucky said hesitantly, unsure whether agreeing to this was going to help or damage his cause.

There was further silence. 

“Just one more day,” Bucky begged. “That’s all I need. We’re so close, Christina. And then the day after I’ll come back and I will tell you all about this properly, in as much detail as you like.”

“I never felt that this mission was appropriate for you,” Christina reminded him. “I did my best to dissuade the President and his advisers from permitting you to be involved…”

Bucky felt his heart drop. This sounded like she’d made up her mind. He’d failed. It was over. But he still had one trump card left to play. He didn’t want to, but needs must.

“If you tell me to come back, Christina, there’s no guarantee that I’ll actually do so,” he said, almost unable to believe his audacity for making this threat. His heart pounded furiously in his chest, and his mouth suddenly felt very dry. But his mind was clear. Despite the consequences, he was certain that carrying on with the mission, even without permission, was the right choice. 

“Let me stop you right there.” Christina’s voice had a hard edge to it that he didn’t hear very often from her. “You won’t sway me by threatening to ignore me. You agreed that if I told you to return, that you would. If you go off the books, that’s your pardon gone. Your freedom gone. You will end up a fugitive and the next time you’re in prison, you will stay there. There will be no second chances.”

“This is more important,” Bucky declared. “If that’s what the consequences are, then I’ll accept them, gladly, so long as I get the chance to end this. I won’t walk away from this, and I don’t care what anyone says.”

His heart continued to pound against his ribcage. He almost couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth. He was threatening to go rogue. And he knew Christina wasn’t exaggerating the consequences of this. 

“Help me understand,” Christina said, “why this is so important that it’s worth jeopardising all the hard work and progress you have made over this last year.”

Bucky felt slightly thrown by this sudden change in direction. This wasn’t a challenge. This wasn’t a telling off. Christina genuinely appeared interested in the answer. 

“Because I can help,” Bucky said, feeling that that alone should be enough of a response. 

“You have no obligation to help, just because you can,” she said. 

“It’s my choice to help,” he said, remembering so many conversations he’d had with Christina about choice.

“Is it really?” Christina asked. “Is it a choice? Or is it because of your association with the serum that you feel the need to do this as a form of atonement? Because you feel responsible in some way.”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I walked away now,” Bucky said. 

“Then how is it a choice?” she asked.

Bucky fell silent, mentally cursing her perceptiveness and ability to understand his inner world so well. 

“I understand what you’re saying,” he said finally. “I do. I get it. And I’m sure that’s something we can work on together after all this is over. But right now, I’m asking you to please not make this decision for me. I might make poor choices, but they’re mine to make.”

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asked him. “I mean… later today, I suppose.”

Bucky’s spirits lifted. That sounded… a bit more promising.

“We know who we’re looking for,” he said quickly. “Steve’s friend is locating him for us. We’re going to see him tomorrow. And then I’ll go back and take my medication. That’s all we’re doing.”

“And what do you intend to do with this man when you find him?” she asked.

Bucky shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “I don’t really care. I’m sure Sam will figure it out. I just want to make sure the serum is destroyed along with any equipment for making it. And then I’ll come back. The whole thing will be over by midday, Christina, and then we’ll be heading back. Zemo will go back to prison and you and I can talk all about this properly. I just need a few more hours.”

“I’m going to talk to some people,” Christina said, “and when Sam rings, I will listen to what he has to say.”

“Great,” Bucky said, feeling shocked that it seemed like he’d actually succeeded in getting her to agree with him.

“If it were up to me,” Christina said, “I’d tell you to come back. I’d have never let you go in the first place, but unfortunately this goes beyond me and I can only do so much.” She sounded resentful.

Of course, Bucky thought. It was the President and people like Walker who had eagerly sought Bucky's involvement. If it meant that the problem of the Super-Soldiers wasn’t dealt with, they wouldn't want him sent back. They didn't care about Bucky's freak out; they only cared if he could carry on and finish the job. 

He ended the call with Christina and felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Although he wasn’t out of the woods yet, he told himself. Sam was still going to speak to Christina and while Bucky had tried to downplay the night’s events, he knew Sam wouldn’t hold back. And Christina could still persuade the President that it would be best to send Bucky home, although he doubted that the President and his advisers cared enough about Bucky's mental well-being to do so, as long as it meant that he wasn't a risk to innocent civilians or didn't become a national security risk. Or an international one.

He’d done all he could. Now he just had to wait and see what was going to happen next.

The rest of the night passed slowly. Bucky dozed off a little, jerking himself awake every twenty minutes or so to avoid falling into a deep sleep and being bombarded by his usual nighttime terrors. 

He felt absolutely shattered. The events of the last few days had left him feeling exhausted, but he didn’t dare let himself fall asleep properly. Couldn’t risk Sam or Zemo walking in to find him in the throes of a nightmare. 

He was going to have some very unpleasant conversations with Christina when he returned. Not only about Madripoor and Selby and Zemo, but also over the last two weeks he’d been completely neglecting any of his self-care tasks. Sleeping. Eating. Engaging in healthy strategies to manage intrusive thoughts. All those things had gone completely out of the window since he’d got himself involved in the Flag Smasher mess. 

He knew he’d not exactly been excelling himself, and he vowed to make a bit more effort. Making a silent promise that if he was allowed to carry on, that he would do better. 

Morning came. Bucky watched the sun rise through the window. Although it was still early, it was officially morning, and he’d promised Sam he would stay put until the morning. Bucky made his way through to the kitchen area and started browsing through the cupboards and the fridge. 

If he wanted to prove to Sam that all was well, then it would help for Sam to see him eating some breakfast, he thought. Normal, healthy, fine people ate breakfast. And he was actually feeling peckish. Since Christina had had him trying to eat regular meals, he found himself feeling hungry so much more often, and he’d not eaten anything since before they got Zemo out of prison. Zemo had offered them food, but he’d been too anxious to accept any of it.  

It was Zemo who joined him first, while Bucky was staring absentmindedly into the fridge. 

“Good morning, James,” Zemo greeted him, reaching past Bucky for some butter and inspecting the contents of the bread bin. 

Bucky watched as Zemo put some bread into the toaster.

“I see you’re still here,” Bucky said. “Sam was certain you’d try to slip off if given the opportunity.”

Zemo could have vanished last night, had he wanted to.

Zemo continued to prepare his breakfast, a small smile on his face. 

“I am determined to see this mission through to the end,” Zemo eventually said. “Even to my own detriment. As are you.”

Zemo waggled a slice of toast at Bucky. 

“Do you want some?” he asked.

Bucky shook his head. Then changed his mind. Toast would be acceptable, actually. He could keep down toast. Zemo passed him a plate. Bucky decided against butter. That would be risking it too much. 

Zemo slathered some lumpy looking jam onto his toast and sat down at the table. Bucky, slightly reluctantly, sat down opposite him, hoping that Sam would join them soon. 

“Sam seemed a little flustered when he came to get me last night,” Zemo said casually. “And in such a bad temper, too. Almost as if he’d had an unpleasant conversation with somebody.”

Bucky felt his blood run cold. That wasn’t an innocuous observation. Zemo didn’t do innocuous. Every word Zemo said was carefully planned out and laden with meaning. Bucky’s eyes roved Zemo’s face, trying to find some hint of Zemo’s inner thoughts, but Zemo was a blank page and as unreadable as always.

Zemo smiled at him, then turned his attention to his toast, seeming completely oblivious to how his words had landed. 

He knows , Bucky thought as he continued to stare at Zemo suspiciously, his toast completely forgotten. Zemo must have followed them back and heard everything. 

Should he ask for confirmation? Or would bringing it up just make it worse?

Bucky continued to stare at Zemo, his mind racing. 

If Zemo had been eavesdropping, he would have heard Bucky’s admission to liking Sam. He would have heard Bucky talking about Howard and about the videotape. 

Even worse, he realised with a jolt, he would have heard everything Sam had said about Bucky’s mental health, and therapy, and…

Did it matter? Did it matter if Zemo knew or not? Aside from the embarrassment, what difference did it make if Zemo had heard their argument? Zemo was perceptive. He’d already noticed that there was something between him and Sam. And he already knew that Bucky was in therapy, thanks to Sam mentioning it on the plane yesterday. 

Bucky was still deliberating over whether he cared about what Zemo might or might not know when he heard footsteps from the hallway, indicating that Sam would soon be joining them.

Bucky pushed all thoughts of Zemo aside and picked up his toast. He had to focus on showing Sam that everything was fine. Nothing else mattered right now. He could spend time fruitlessly trying to figure Zemo out later.

Sam walked into the room, staring down at his phone. 

“Sharon’s located Nagel,” he said.

Bucky dropped his toast. 

"Let's go," he said, hastily rising. 

“Not so fast,” Sam said, finally looking up. He fixed Bucky with a hard stare and Bucky slowly sank back down into his chair.

“We shouldn’t waste any more time,” Zemo remarked, his eyes flitting between the two men. “Nagel will be made aware we are looking for him. He’s probably already making plans to move on.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. Zemo must be right, he thought. If Sam was still adamant that they should all leave and he would return later with Walker, then they’d likely miss their only opportunity to find this man. Nagel would go underground and it could be ages before he could be found again, if ever.

“I rang Dr Raynor,” Bucky said quickly.

Sam looked surprised.

“We’re talking about this now ?” Sam asked, with a pointed glance at Zemo.

Bucky swallowed. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Zemo already knows… don’t you?” he looked over at Zemo, whose face remained as inscrutable as ever.

“You heard us last night, didn’t you?” Bucky said. “You followed us back.”

Zemo gave a small shrug, but didn’t answer. 

Sam glared at Zemo, a look of shocked disbelief on his face. 

“Get out!” he snapped. 

“If anyone wanted my opinion…” Zemo began.

“We don’t!” Sam interrupted.

“Just let him stay, Sam,” Bucky said, feeling that in this, at least, Zemo would be on his side. He didn't really want to be alone with Sam at the moment. Sam had been so angry last night and from what he’d seen of Sam’s mood this morning, it didn’t seem like it had improved much. “It doesn’t matter what he hears.”

“In my defence,” Zemo said, “you weren’t exactly trying hard not to be overheard.”

Sam sank down in the spare chair and buried his head in his hands. Bucky waited a moment, then carried on.

“It should be fine for me to stay on,” Bucky said, choosing his words carefully. He couldn’t say ‘Dr Raynor said it was fine for me to stay’ or words to that effect, because that wouldn’t be the truth. “I told her about what happened.”

Sam looked up at him, doubt etched on his features.

“Did you?” he asked. “You told her everything ?”

Bucky swallowed.

“I gave her the gist,” he said. 

“The gist?” Sam repeated.

“I summarised it for her, briefly,” Bucky elaborated.

Sam just stared at him. 

“I told her what the plan is for today,” Bucky continued, uncertain whether carrying on was making this worse or better. “She knows where we are, and what we’re going to be doing next.”

Sam's intense stare and silence were making him increasingly uncomfortable. 

“Don’t take my word for it,” Bucky said. “I told her to expect a call from you. She’s speaking to the President and his people.”

Sam stood up.

“I’m going to ring her right now,” he said.

Bucky hoped he didn’t look as anxious as he felt. 

“You do that,” he said coolly.

Bucky felt simply awful as he watched Sam leave the room. He knew he’d been putting Sam through Hell lately, and it was creating such a divide between the two of them. He just kept making things worse and worse. He had no idea how they could ever recover from this. He stared down at his untouched slice of toast and felt sick. 

“Sam will be fine,” Zemo said, almost reassuringly. “The mission takes priority. There will be time later for everything else.”

The mission, Bucky thought. Yes, Nagel and the serum. He mustn’t allow himself to be distracted. He had to keep a rational mind for what lay ahead. 

And what exactly lay ahead? He resolved to stay in Madripoor until the end, no matter what anyone said, but he hadn't given much thought at all to the next stage of the mission because he had been so focused on recent events. 

Nagel Selby had said. That’s the man they would confront today. He was the man Sharon had found for them. But who was he? And was he indeed linked to the experiments in the 90s, as Bucky had suspected ever since the existence of the Flag Smashers had first been made known to him? 

Bucky eyed Zemo critically, who had now finished his breakfast and was watching him with an expression of polite interest on his face. Zemo knew so much, Bucky thought. Maybe he would know this.

“This man, Nagel,” Bucky began, before he could stop himself. If he was going to ask this question, it had to be when Sam wasn’t here. If Sam knew that Nagel might be linked to everything that had happened in the 90s, there was no way he would allow Bucky to remain involved. The less Sam knew about that time the better, but Bucky needed to know what to expect.  

“Do you know who he is?” Bucky asked. 

“This isn’t the first time I’ve come across his name,” Zemo replied. 

That wasn’t helpful in the slightest. 

“I mean…” Bucky hated how much his voice wavered. “Did I? Is he someone who I…”

He couldn’t get any more words out. 

“Are you asking me if Nagel ever undertook any work with you when you were the Winter Soldier?” Zemo asked, picking up his glass of water and sipping it, appearing nonchalant. 

Bucky hardly dared respond, suddenly feeling completely petrified. 

“Yes,” he managed to say.

“The answer to that is yes,” Zemo said, still cradling his glass in his fingers.

Bucky chewed on his lower lip and lowered his gaze, not wanting to see the expression on Zemo’s face. 

“In the 90s?” Bucky asked the table.

“Yes,” Zemo replied. 

Bucky closed his eyes, hoping that Zemo wouldn’t notice the effect his words were having on him. He would have preferred to leave the room quickly, but he was genuinely worried that if he stood his legs would be so shaky that he would just collapse to the floor. 

“Hmmm…” Bucky said as he wiped a hand across his eyes and cleared his throat.“I thought so.”

He shook his head violently, trying to shake away the images that suddenly flashed into his mind of the faceless scientists, soon to have Nagel’s face, he supposed, as they bustled around him. Prodding him, poking him, injecting, extracting… 

And Zemo knew all that. He had known all that. For how long? 

“Do you want to take revenge on him?” Zemo asked, and Bucky looked up, feeling shocked by the question.

“I’m not allowed to kill anyone,” Bucky responded quickly. 

That probably wasn’t the best response, he immediately realised. But Zemo didn’t seem to care.

“I should think not,” Zemo said. “But do you want him killed? Do you seek vengeance?"

Bucky was about to respond with an immediate denial, but there was something in Zemo’s expression which made him pause. This was a genuine question, and Zemo was interested in the answer. This wasn’t Christina or Sam, both of whom would need quick assurances and who would have opinions on the response. 

He took a moment to think about it.  

He’d thought about revenge before, of course he had. He’d thought about revenge on Fennhoff. Zola. Lukin. Others. He had an entire list of names of people who’d wronged him. And the list just seemed to get bigger and bigger, now that it included people like Peggy Carter and Colonel Phillips.

But all those people were dead, and revenge wasn’t a possibility. Just a fantasy. Something that could never happen. It had bothered him, the feeling of injustice that came with knowing that he could never face them and knowing that they had lived long happy full lives with no comeuppance for what they had done.

But Nagel was still alive. Not only was he still alive, he was still carrying on with the work he’d been doing back in the 90s. This wasn’t someone who would likely be remorseful, someone who felt actual guilt and who had moved on to a new life, leaving his past behind him. And Bucky would meet him later today. 

This was a chance for proper retribution. Perhaps even closure. He’d spoken to Christina about closure, trying to make sense of the word and trying to work out what could possibly bring him closure. Could revenge give him closure?

And did he want it?

What good could come of revenge and retribution? Nagel was just one man. There’d been so many. And Nagel wouldn’t be the only man who was still alive. Bucky only stopped being the Winter Soldier in 2014. That was less than ten years ago - five years ago if you counted the blip. There’d be tens of people - maybe even hundreds of people who’d all had varying degrees of involvement with him. Even if they’d not been actively working with him, there were still people who’d known about the Winter Soldier and stayed silent about it. 

After Nagel, there would be another. And then another. And another. A never-ending cycle of faceless and nameless people to be hunted down and punished. And to what purpose? He couldn’t undo what had been already done. He couldn’t make people feel guilt and remorse. His meeting with Rumlow was far from satisfying. To the contrary, it had been absolutely hellish meeting up with Rumlow, realising that the other man had no remorse for his actions, and who instead seemed to take pleasure in causing Bucky further emotional distress.

Beginning a path of revenge could only lead to further pain and torment. It couldn’t possibly bring him satisfaction. And he couldn’t see how it could possibly bring him closure. 

 “No,” Bucky said finally. He hadn’t realised that during his deep consideration of Zemo’s question that he’d been completely pulverising the slice of toast between his fingers. He stared down at the crumbs, feeling an odd sense of release as he finally settled on the answer to Zemo’s question.

“No, I don’t,” he said quietly. 

Notes:

I made it so that Nagel was involved with the Winter Soldier. I thought it would be a nice bit of added dramatic angst to have this connection there (as if there wasn't already enough!).

Also, Christina would totally be telling him to come home. There's no universe in which she would say 'oh yes just carry on re-exposing yourself to all that trauma'. But I need him to stay so the plot can happen (of course) so therefore she is doing her best to get Bucky to come back but she is being overruled.

Chapter 35: Something Real

Something Real

 

 

Sam was taking forever to make his phone call to Dr Raynor. Bucky felt uneasy and nervous as time passed, imagining worst-case scenarios in his head about Sam's return, the conversations between Dr Raynor and Sam about him, and the possibility of going back to Brooklyn.

He was also thinking about Wilfred Nagel, and the other man’s connection to him. How would it feel to finally see him in person after all this time? Would Bucky recognise him? Would he remember what Nagel had done with him almost thirty years ago? That part of his experience was still blurry. He knew superficially what had happened in the 90s, but specific details were still very, very hazy. 

Zemo appeared completely at ease, but Bucky had seen the uncertain look he’d had on his face before Sam had left to speak to Christina. Zemo's calm facade hid his underlying unease. And so he should be. If Bucky had to go home, Zemo would likely go back to prison. Like Bucky, Zemo was determined to see it through till the end. 

In a little daydream, Bucky imagined what he and Zemo would do if Sam suddenly ended their mission. Neither of them would agree to that. Both he and Zemo knew they couldn't be removed from this mission. They’d set out together, leaving Sam behind, two fugitives operating completely outside of the law, and then… then what? 

He’d return to face judgement, of course. And all the consequences Christina had helpfully reminded him of what would come to pass: he’d lose his freedom, his second chance. And if Sam wasn't completely lost to him already after all the shit he'd put him through, he would also lose Sam.

God, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He didn’t want to go rogue. He didn’t want to end up going off with Zemo, of all people. Zemo was too confusing. Sometimes he seemed like an ally, sometimes an enemy. Bucky couldn't understand him and he didn't want to be alone with him any more than necessary. He knew Sam was right when he’d said that Bucky was susceptible to Zemo’s manipulations. 

Eventually, Sam returned. He re-entered the kitchen area in silence, ignoring the two of them completely, and turned on the electric kettle. 

 Bucky waited, tapping his fingers on the tabletop as he considered whether he should break the silence, but opted to wait for Sam to take the lead.

Sam joined them both at the table, his coffee cradled in his hands, and eyed Bucky critically. 

“You sure were economical with the truth when you spoke to Dr Raynor, huh?” Sam accused.

Bucky shifted uncomfortably in his seat and kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s coffee mug rather than meet Sam’s eyes.

“I told her you would fill her in on all the finer details,” he mumbled. “What did…”

“You told her we’d be returning after today,” Sam said. 

“We might,” Bucky said, feeling defensive, “once we’ve met with Nagel, there may be nothing left for us to do.”

“God,” Sam muttered, and he heaved a great sigh. Bucky let his eyes flicker up to see Sam’s face. To his surprise, Sam didn’t actually appear angry. He appeared irritated but also maybe… was there some mild amusement?

“Well,” Sam said, “they’re sending Walker to join us. For supervisory oversight.”

“Oh God,” Bucky moaned. Was that the cost of continuing - being compelled to collaborate with the Captain America wannabe? 

“You don’t get to complain about this,” Sam said. “Frankly, I’m astonished they’re allowing you to carry on at all. Me too, for that matter, given what I’ve let you get away with when I’m supposed to be the one responsible for you.”

Bucky scowled down at the table but remained silent. Sam was right. This was a good outcome. Unless…

Zemo had clearly arrived at the same conclusion as Bucky, speaking up before Bucky could.

Zemo said that if they had to wait now, they would miss their opportunity to meet with Nagel. 

“We’re to carry on as planned,” Sam said, sounding tired, “and to keep Walker advised of our whereabouts. He is currently in Germany. Apparently, he went straight there after finding out you’d escaped prison. He’s going to join us later.”

That was… more than acceptable, actually, Bucky thought. They could sort out Nagel now and deal with the problem of having Walker on their backs later. It wouldn’t be that hard to ditch him, surely? 

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Zemo said. “Contact Sharon Carter and tell her we are ready to meet with Nagel.”

Bucky nodded in agreement and Sam reached for his phone. 

Sharon's help had a price - not only Sam's promised pardon, but also that she would accompany them to meet Nagel. 

She joined them shortly after Sam had sent her a text to say they were ready, bringing with her communication devices for each of them, along with several guns, one of which she offered to Sam. 

Sam shook his head. “No thanks,” he said. “I don’t want this to turn into a gunfight.”

“We’re returning to Lowtown,” she warned. “The moment we step into that part of Madripoor, there will be a target on our backs.”

“Then you’d better get us in and out quickly,” Sam replied, but he reluctantly accepted the weapon.  

She then offered a second pistol to Bucky, who shared none of Sam’s reservations about having the ability to fight fire with fire, and he took it off her quickly. She did not even spare a glance towards Zemo.

“Right then,” she said. “Here’s the plan…”

She told them that Nagel had set up his secret laboratory, hidden in the depths of a Shipping Yard in Lowtown. She would keep watch outside as she expected every bounty hunter in Lowtown to be on their heels the moment they arrived. They needed to be quick. They needed to be quiet. Their priority was to avoid any unnecessary advertising of their presence. 

Of course, the complete opposite happened. 

The initial phase of the plan went smoothly. Without any trouble, Sharon led them through the massive maze of shipping containers and gestured for them to enter the right one. There was no sign of any hostiles. 

They discovered the hidden door in the back of the shipping container Sharon had shown them, and entered. Bucky stayed at the rear, pistol ready, keeping an eye out behind them in case they got flanked. 

The sound of hip hop music reached his ears, along with a male voice singing along. Bucky sped up, pushing past Sam and Zemo as he couldn’t wait any longer to see this man. 

“Wait!” he heard Sam hiss, but he ignored him. He could hear that Nagel was alone. There was no-one else with him. They didn't have to be that cautious. No-one had tipped Nagel off, he was sure.

The shocked expression on Nagel’s face as they stepped into his line of sight confirmed Bucky’s thoughts that no one had warned Nagel that someone was coming for him. Nagel’s mouth dropped open, and his hand froze in mid-air, in the process of pouring some liquid from a test tube. The contents dripped onto the table and made a hissing sound that Bucky could hear even over the music.

“What?” Nagel mouthed, and he fumbled for his phone. Sam grabbed it off him and used it to turn the music off. He then shoved Nagel down into a chair. 

Bucky's gaze fell upon the fearful man, who appeared tiny and meek as he stared up at them. 

Bucky didn’t recognise him at all. He thought he would. He thought that seeing Nagel would unlock something in his brain, bringing back a rush of memories. Nothing about his face seemed familiar - watery blue eyes, dark hair. And when he spoke, it was with an American accent tinged with something else, but not Russian. 

“Who are you? What do you want?” Nagel asked. He spoke slowly and clearly, despite his fear.

“We know you made the super-soldier serum,” Sam told him.

Nagel stood up. 

“Get out,” he said. 

 Bucky stepped forward to push him back into the chair, but Nagel’s face paled as his eyes took in Bucky’s face, recognising him, and he stumbled back himself, practically falling back into the chair.

That reaction was telling. For a moment Bucky thought Zemo had been lying when he’d said Nagel had been involved with the experiments in the 90s. Bucky couldn't recall the man's name or face, he had no memory of him at all. But Nagel’s reaction to Bucky… that spoke volumes. It wasn't the usual fear people showed when facing the former Winter Soldier. Nagel had gone as white as a ghost. And his eyes… they weren’t just fearful. He looked petrified. There was guilt there, too. 

“You know who he is,” Sam said, gesturing towards Bucky. It wasn’t a question. “We don’t want to hurt you. We want to talk to you.”

Bucky raised his gun and held it to Nagel’s head. Nagel winced. 

Behind him Bucky could hear Zemo opening and closing drawers and searching through them, clinking glass test tube bottles and rifling through papers. 

They’d have to destroy it all, Bucky realised. Everything in this lab would need to be completely decimated. They had to ensure that they left nothing behind: no paperwork, no bottles or jars of weird substances, no scribbled equations. It would all have to go. 

They’d not really decided what they would do with Nagel. Sharon had asked, but Sam had declined to give her an answer. Sam hadn’t even told Bucky what the plan was. It was obvious they had to destroy any chance of recreating the serum, but what about Nagel himself? 

They couldn’t leave him here. The knowledge of how to make the serum was in his head. 

Was Sam planning to bring him back to the States, have him locked up? 

That prospect made Bucky feel uneasy. Like Steve, Bucky also harboured a strong suspicion of government authority figures. A man who could make serum, in the hands of the American government? That wasn’t the solution, and he knew Sam must know it too, as Sam also shared that distrust. That was part of the reason Sam should be Captain America, not someone like Walker, filled to the brim with blind patriotism. 

Do you want him killed? Zemo had asked earlier. 

Maybe that was the only option, Bucky thought. Sam would never make that choice. Bucky’s eyes drifted from Nagel, to the gun that he held to the man’s temple. Bucky would have to make that choice for him. But he’d meant what he’d said earlier to Zemo. He didn’t want to kill Nagel. 

“You’re a smart guy,” he heard Sam tell Nagel. “You’d better get conversational real quick.”

“How about a counter proposal?” Nagel asked, and Bucky blinked in astonishment at the man’s audacity. “Make a better offer, and I’ll talk.”

Bucky fired his gun. Not at Nagel, but just beside. It was a warning. Nagel clearly got the message, for he swallowed and fell silent. 

“I was brought into Hydra’s Winter Soldier programme to pick up their work, after the five failed test subjects in Siberia,” Nagel said slowly.

Sam glanced over at Bucky and their eyes met briefly, before Bucky quickly looked away. This wasn’t what they needed Nagel to talk about, and Bucky felt worried about what Nagel might say. He took the lead himself to hurry Nagel up, before he revealed too much to Sam.

“Stop stalling,” he growled at Nagel, who winced once again and shrank further into the chair. “Tell us about this serum.”

And then Nagel told them about his later work with the CIA, about being given samples of blood from an ‘American test subject’ - Isaiah Bradley, Bucky presumed. About how, after being blipped, the Power Broker recruited Nagel to make more serum.

As Nagel spoke, the sounds of fighting came through Bucky’s earpiece. Heavy breathing and gunshots. Sharon was being attacked.

“We got trouble,” she said, panting hard through the earpiece. “You need to wrap this up.”

“Is there any serum in this lab?” Bucky asked Nagel, who shook his head. Bucky didn’t believe him for a single second, but it didn’t matter. They’d destroy the place themselves soon enough. Behind him, he could hear Zemo still searching through the lab, pulling things out, ripping papers and destroying bottles. 

“How much serum did you make, and who did you give it to?” Sam asked Nagel, as the sounds of Sharon fighting continued in the background. 

Bucky didn’t hear Nagel’s response. Suddenly, he couldn’t hear anything. The sounds of Zemo raining down destruction on the lab, Sharon’s fighting and pleas to them to hurry, all faded to be replaced by white noise.

Bucky felt a strange feeling wash over him. It felt somewhat like déjà vu. Mentions of Siberia, Hydra, and 'Winter Soldier' by Nagel caused it. For suddenly Bucky felt an intense familiarity as he continued to stare down at the scientist. Bucky was absolutely certain that this man had a past connection with him. He wracked his brain, trying to seek a clear memory, something that he could tie unequivocally to this man. He didn’t want shadows, blurry faces and memories given to him by someone else. He wanted something real. And then something resurfaced in his mind.

“I remember you,” Bucky heard himself say. He felt like he was in a dream, like the words coming out of his mouth weren’t actually his. Almost like back when he was the Winter Soldier, carrying out actions and tasks with no proper control of himself. 

Nagel blanched at Bucky’s words, and his face paled even further, if that were at all possible. 

Sam looked over at Bucky, Nagel suddenly forgotten, his eyes quizzical and questioning. 

"You said I was an abomination," Bucky said, feeling distant and disconnected, as if speaking from afar. 

“You knew who I was,” Bucky continued, “you knew, and you said nothing.” He pressed the gun right up against the side of Nagel’s head, ignoring Sam’s panicked sounding “Buck…”

A faint image appeared in his mind’s eye, a younger Nagel leaning over him holding something, shining a light into his eyes. Talking to another man, a faceless blurry one, lips curled into a smile as the other man laughed.

Nagel shook his head, looking frantic. Sweat glistened on his forehead. "No..." His voice, clear and calm until now, trembled for the first time. “N…n….no… That’s not what happened…”

And then several things happened, all in quick succession.

Sharon rushed in.

“We need to leave now!” she shouted.

A gunshot, Nagel dead, neat hole in head, blood trickling, body slumped in chair. 

For a moment Bucky stared at his own gun, thinking it had been he himself who had pulled the trigger and shot Nagel, but the bullet couldn’t have been shot from his gun. The trajectory wasn’t right.

He heard Sam shout. 

Sharon shouted too.

“What did you do!?” she screamed.

And Zemo was there, holding a gun, still raised, the barrel directed towards Nagel’s corpse. Bucky noticed a slight smile on Zemo's face, the smug expression of satisfaction after a task successfully completed.

And then the room exploded.

Bucky recovered quickly. The immediate 'danger' situation snapped him out of his head and back into control. 

His first thought was Sam. Get Sam out of harm’s way. He spotted Sam pulling himself out of the rubble. There was no sign of Zemo. 

The sound of gunfire came from all sides as he made his way over to Sam and they quickly piled up a makeshift barricade from bits of exploded shipping containers. Sam had his gun out and was returning fire. Sharon joined them, pulling out her own gun. 

“This guy had a fucking bazooka ,” Sharon yelled at them over the noise. “Why didn’t you leave when I told you to!?”

Sam was yelling back at her. Ignoring them, Bucky scanned the shipping yard, searching for shooters and assessing their numbers, formulating an escape plan. What he needed was a distraction…

It was Zemo who gave them the distraction. Bucky did not know how Zemo got there, but there he was, striding out on top of the containers opposite, gun still in hand, he must have found it while searching through Nagel’s laboratory, wearing a strange purple balaclava which enveloped his entire head. He aimed with his gun towards something Bucky couldn’t see, and a second later there was another massive explosion, followed by the shouts and screams of some of their adversaries. Bucky grabbed Sam by the arm. 

“Let’s go!” he shouted, and they took off. Bucky let Sam go in front of him and shouted directions at him, his brain quickly reversing the pathway Sharon had brought them through the storage yard to get them out of danger as quickly as possible. 

Someone shot at them, and Bucky raised his gun and shot back. This wasn't the time to worry about killing anyone. He and Sam were running for their lives. If he ended up killing someone to protect Sam, so be it. 

He felt a panic creeping up on him. His worry for Sam’s safety was immense. They faced overwhelming numbers. He was fairly certain Sam was out of bullets, and he himself now only had four bullets left. 

“Go left!” he shouted at Sam, and Sam immediately turned and sprinted on.

“Did you see where Sharon and Zemo went?” Sam shouted, sounding a little breathless.

Bucky stopped himself from shouting back that he didn’t care. 

“They’ll be fine,” he answered. 

He took someone out with a headshot who shot at them from atop a storage container. Three bullets left. He yelled at Sam to turn right. This place was an absolute labyrinth. They were like cornered rats. 

He heard Sam shout ahead of him and quickly sprinted to catch up. 

It was Zemo, no longer wearing the balaclava, sitting behind the wheel of an old convertible car. He must have found it inside a storage container, but god only knew how he’d got it out and running. Zemo was resourceful. 

Zemo beckoned them to get in the car. 

“What about Sharon?” Sam asked.

“She got away,” Zemo said. “All the focus is on us. She snuck off.”

Bucky wondered if Zemo was lying to get Sam into the car, but he didn’t challenge Zemo. He wanted to get Sam to leave, and if Sam was worried about Sharon’s safety, he wouldn’t. He shouted at Sam to get in and made his way round to the driver’s side of the car.

“Move,” Bucky instructed Zemo.

“What?” Zemo asked, looking confused. 

A shot hit the side of the car. Bucky saw Sam duck his head down. Zemo had chosen a car with no fucking roof! 

Bucky growled, grabbed Zemo by the shoulders and shoved him over into the passenger seat, and quickly took his place. 

More shots fired, Bucky saw three people running towards them in the rearview mirror. With a swift motion, he put the car in reverse, flooring the accelerator, resulting in a loud screech. He then released the brake and collided with the men behind them. Two jumped away, but the third was hit and fell, yelling. He felt the telltale bump as the car ran over part of the man’s body - probably his leg or something, but he didn’t pause. There was no room to turn the car around. He kept it in reverse, hurling the car through the storage yard, using the mirrors to stay on track and avoid ramming into the containers. 

He felt himself fall back into the same headspace he’d been in when in Selby’s bar, when Zemo had ordered him to attack. The headspace that was the Winter Soldier. But yesterday he’d needed to maintain some control, so that he wouldn’t seriously hurt anyone. It was different now. He would need to rely on his Winter Soldier instincts to escape. The yard teemed with people attempting to kill them. They had serious weapons at their disposal. No time to worry about holding back. He needed to use every advantage he had to get them out of here alive.

He steered the car with his right arm, the pistol in his left. He barely even realised that he was aiming and shooting the gun before he was out of bullets and he flung the now useless weapon into Zemo’s lap. 

He could hear Sam shouting in the seat behind him, and a strange choking noise came from Zemo. Bucky swiftly glanced at Zemo, who appeared pale and on the verge of being sick.

“Don’t you dare throw up!” he yelled at Zemo, as he finally found a space big enough to turn the car around. He spun the car around in a full circle, desperate not to lose momentum, and then accelerated forward. More shots came from behind, but their adversaries were too far for impact. They were nearly out.

“God, Buck,” he heard Sam say weakly from the back seat. 

When they finally exited the storage yard, Bucky pushed the car to full speed, getting them onto the main road that led away from the city. They needed to leave Madripoor and return to the plane as soon as possible.

"James," Zemo said quietly, his hand covering his mouth, "you need to go the other way.”

“Shut up Zemo or I’ll throw you out of the car,” Bucky snapped. But then Zemo’s words registered, and he flung the car round in an impressive screeching u-turn.

Sam shouted, Zemo groaned, and Bucky accelerated the car.

Bucky refused to slow the car down until they reached the airfield where the plane was waiting for them. He hoped Zemo had had the foresight to get Oeznik prepped for them to leave, otherwise they’d be in trouble. Bounty hunters would follow them back, or perhaps they had already discovered their plane and were waiting to ambush them. They needed to leave immediately.

 He drove right up to the plane and flung on the brakes. 

Zemo’s head hit the dashboard and Sam yelled again. 

“Should have worn the seatbelt,” Bucky said to Zemo, and he jumped out of the car. Oeznik was waiting for them, the steps for the plane were down and he was standing at the base of them.  

Bucky grabbed Sam’s arm. He was getting Sam onto the plane right now, and getting them both out of here.

“Get the old man on the plane!” he shouted to Zemo. As he spoke, he heard the screeching of other cars, and more gunshots. His assumption of being followed or found here proved correct. He hurriedly ushered Sam onto the plane and swiftly entered the cockpit.

He needed to get them going quickly. They’d had a bazooka, Sharon said, which had blown up the lab. Something like that could easily devastate Zemo’s small plane, killing all of them inside it.

The sound of the closed door suggested that everyone was now on board.

It was a simple matter to start the plane. Bucky could fly pretty much anything. Shots were fired at the plane, but it was too late for the bounty hunters. 

Bucky piloted the plane while Oeznik stumbled into the cockpit and stared at him sternly. 

“All yours,” Bucky said, standing up and pushing the old man into the pilot’s seat. 

He then joined Sam and Zemo in the back of the plane. Both were looking slightly pale. Zemo still seemed on the verge of vomiting. He had a bruise on his forehead from where it had made contact with the dashboard. 

Bucky flung himself into the seat opposite Sam. Zemo sat across the aisle from them. Bucky made eye contact with Sam and grinned. 

Bucky knew this wasn’t exactly a time to be happy, but he felt absolutely pumped. All the excitement and danger and adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He felt strangely euphoric. 

He’d done it. He’d got them all out. They were all alive. 

They’d dealt with the serum. They’d dealt with Nagel. He’d protected them all and got them out without losing himself entirely to the Winter Soldier. He’d done all that. 

Sam was safe. 

He felt victorious. 

“You don’t need to say it,” Bucky said to Sam. “I already know.”

“Know what?” Sam said faintly, clearly not sharing Bucky’s manic enthusiasm. He looked drained. 

Bucky was still buzzing in the face of Sam’s obvious exhaustion. The adrenaline, the rush, the danger, and the sense of purpose. It had been exhilarating.

“That I’m amazing,” Bucky said with a smile. 

“Yes,” said Sam, sounding more like himself now, “amazingly big headed . I don’t know how you get around with that massive ego.”

Good, Bucky thought. Sam was returning to his normal quippy self. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, pretending to feel slightly stung by Sam’s words. “I’m pretty certain I just saved both your sorry lives. Where’s the gratitude?”

He looked over at Zemo for some confirmation, but Zemo was still looking shell-shocked.

“I’ll send the details of that woman Nagel told us about to Torres,” Sam said, getting out his phone, “see if he can trace her. And Bucky?”

“Yeah?” Bucky said, his ears practically pricking up like a dog’s. Sam wanted him to do something? He’d do it. Whatever it was. They were a team, he and Sam, and they could do anything together. 

“Two things,” Sam said. “Find. And. Take. Your. Pills. Right. Now. And second, you drive like a fucking maniac.” Sam flumped back in his seat and began texting.

Bucky sighed heavily, and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He could tell he was being a bit too… exuberant right now. But he couldn’t help it. His heart was still pumping furiously in his chest, so hard he could practically feel it pounding against his ribcage. 

“I suppose we should be grateful,” Zemo said, finally finding his voice, “that the Winter Soldier has such skills.”

Bucky felt too hyped up to be annoyed with Zemo right now.

“No,” he replied cheerfully, “that was all just me.”

“Although…” he said, waving a hand to get Zemo’s attention. Zemo had spent the last two days they’d been together making snide comment after snide comment about Bucky, about the Winter Soldier, and Bucky had had enough of it. He’d had enough of being confused about Zemo. And he wanted to turn the tables on him. 

“Your Russian is shit,” he told Zemo frankly. Sam looked up from his phone, eyebrows raised, and stared at Zemo, taking in his reaction.

Bucky could tell that the words had landed. Zemo, normally so controlled and careful with his emotions, actually looked shocked. This gave him the confidence to continue, knowing that what he was saying would effectively wind Zemo up.

“If I had still been the Winter Soldier in Selby’s bar, for real, I wouldn’t have done anything at all because of how incomprehensible you are.”

Bucky saw Zemo’s brow furrow and his smile widened.

“You don’t even know what you ordered me to do, do you?” he said, deliberately letting his voice sound mocking, thrilled for once that he actually had the upper hand with Zemo, of all people. The man who prided himself on being in control of every situation.

Zemo stood up, wiped some imaginary dirt off his trousers, then muttered something about talking to Oeznik about their next location. “Wow,” Sam said, as he watched Zemo hurry away. “That struck a nerve.”

Bucky sank back against the chair. His exuberance quickly turned into exhaustion. All of his euphoria suddenly dissipated, and he felt floppy. 

Mood swings, he thought. He needed to take his pills and get himself back to normal as quickly as possible. Sam was looking at him like he was nuts. And he probably wasn’t wrong.

He got up and pulled his bag from the overhead storage, where he’d shoved his things when they’d first entered Zemo’s plane. He located his pills and then sat back down opposite Sam. Sam was still texting, probably with Torres, trying to locate that woman Nagel had mentioned. Bucky found he couldn’t remember much of what Nagel had said, so he was glad that Sam at least had been paying attention. 

“Sharon says she’s okay,” Sam said, reminding Bucky that he had completely forgotten about Sharon. “Though she’s miffed that we just abandoned her. I told her Zemo said she’d left.”

Bucky shrugged. Something about Sharon Carter really didn't sit right with him, and he didn't care one iota if she was annoyed with him.

“Tell her it was all my fault,” Bucky suggested. “She seemed to like you. No reason to burn that bridge. She might help you more later.”

“I already told her you went completely barmy and there was nothing I could do about it,” Sam said. “And about your insane driving.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. He then waggled his pill container at Sam to make it clear that he was taking them. He tipped two out. 

“Hey,” Sam said, lowering his phone and his voice, his eyes flickering over towards the cockpit.

“What was it Zemo actually told you to do in Selby’s bar?” he asked.

Bucky laughed and threw one of his pills into the air. He caught it in his mouth and swallowed it dry.

“He told me to pass the salt,” Bucky said, and his heart leapt when Sam laughed. 

Perhaps it will all work out , he thought, and everything will be fine . 

Maybe they could recover from this. Sam’s hard, furious face from the night before flashed before his eyes. Sam’s rage, his hurt and concern. So different now from Sam’s face, lit up with joy, relaxed, laughing, the small gap between his front two teeth clearly noticeable, which made his smile so unique and endearing. He’d do anything to keep Sam smiling. Seeing Sam's face twisted with fury was something he never wanted to witness again. He would do nothing again that would cause Sam such pain and anger.

He realised then that what he felt for Sam was more than just a crush, a passing fancy that he would soon get over. 

This was something real . 

Notes:

The whole 'pass the salt' thing was something I read on tumblr back in 2022. I don't know how realiable it is but someone posted a whole dialogue about Daniel Bruhl's Russian and that what he is really saying to Bucky in the bar is 'Pass the Salt' and 'Attack with a feather'.

There's also (you may have noticed) a bit of a running theme throughout this series about how awful Bucky's driving is. I have no idea why I decided that everyone would just unilaterally agree that Bucky is a manic driver, it just happened.

Chapter 36: Dehumanisation

Notes:

There is a minor content warning for the beginning of this chapter - there's a flashback where the Winter Soldier is experiencing some medical experiments and there is a 'blink and you miss it' allusion to a sexual component of these experiments.

Dehumanisation

 

The Soldier was programmed to obey. And obey he would.

Nonetheless, there were moments when he couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the requests being made. Particularly if it felt unusual or possibly against protocol. 

And he felt uneasy now.

He couldn’t pinpoint where his unease stemmed from. There was no context for it. The Soldier knew that he wasn’t supposed to remember things. Sometimes there were things he just knew, an innate sense.

He knew that at the end of a mission he had to be returned to the Chair. He knew the preparation protocols that had to be followed when he was in the Chair. He knew that when a handler said mission report that he would need to reel off details of his mission - only the relevant details, mind. 

Was the mission a success? How was it carried out? What time? Were there any difficulties? Were there any witnesses?

Those were the things the handler wanted to know. 

The handler showed no interest in the Soldier’s other observations. For example, how brightly the sun was shining, the sound of birds singing, the photographs of loved ones adorning the walls of the target’s home. Those things weren’t mission relevant, and not report-worthy. 

How he knew that, he didn’t know either. It felt like a natural instinct buried deep inside him. 

As was the red notebook. With unwavering uncertainty, he always knew that the red notebook signaled pain and horror. But he didn’t know where that knowledge came from.

And it was like that now. Today, he had a feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn’t identify the reason.

He remembered being brought into consciousness, although that process was fuzzy. His mind was so scrambled by the abrupt and painful transition from non-existence to awareness that he couldn’t recall any specific details. But he remembered the Chair, the blinding lights, the searing pain, the agonised screaming, the words…

Ready to comply 

An automatic response. Again, something he knew he had to do, without any memory about why or where this knowledge came from.

And then orders were given. 

Ready to comply

Again.

Then, he was swiftly taken to a different room, where a group of men crowded around him and began doing things to him.

And that felt wrong, even though he’d got his orders from the handler to comply. There were things that just didn't seem right.

The red notebook hadn't been there. He’d expected to see it. Where was it?

Weren’t clothing and supplies supposed to be given to him? Knives, guns, and various other weapons. Maps.

More detail about the mission. Planning and preparation.

 

But there was none of that. Instead, he'd been brought into this room and was now allowing himself to be manhandled by this group of men and none of this felt like protocol. They barked instructions at him. Moved him around the room to engage with various machines and implements.

First a chair. And then lying on a metal bed. And then walking on a machine while several men made notes.

They stuck needles into him, and he let them. They took the clothing off his upper body, and he let them. Little soft pads connected with wires were attached to his chest, and buttons on a machine were pressed, creating a worrisome electric whirring sound. He braced himself for pain, but there was none. The whirring stopped. The men made notes. And the little wires and things were removed, and the men moved on to the next task.

He remained mute, letting himself be directed from one position to the next. Biddable, compliant, as he knew he should be. But this didn’t feel right. Despite being instructed by the handler to comply with these men, he started questioning whether the handler was truly aware of the situation. The handler was not present in the room. 

There was something off about what these men were doing.

And the handler wasn’t here.

What if this went against protocol and the handler placed the blame on the Soldier?

Someone ordered him to take off his trousers, and he hesitated briefly before obeying. His mind was whirring faster than he ever thought possible. Trying to make sense, trying to quell the feeling of absolute wrongness.

He obeyed, but slowly. Yet, he paused as the man, who had earlier connected wires to his chest, reached for a more intimate area. He baulked.

That absolutely wasn’t right. 

This isn’t protocol

The Soldier acted without thinking, striking out before he could fully process his actions. Grabbing the man by the neck with his metal fingers, he squeezed and squeezed and…

Crack!

Shouting.

Yelling.

As a needle pierced his neck, he immediately swiped it away and sprung to his feet.

They scrambled in an effort to escape. Panicking. One man was dead on the floor at his feet, his neck twisted, bone sticking out. 

And then… and then…

Relief

The handler was there. 

Storming into the room. Looking furious.

But not at the Soldier, surely? These men weren’t following protocol.  

“Sit down!” An angry bark, directed at him.

The Soldier immediately dropped back down onto the metal bed, his heart beat quickening as he realised that he’d done wrong, and that could mean punishment. 

The handler stormed over towards him, loomed above him, and with a smooth, swift motion, raised a hand and slapped the Soldier’s face with enough force to whip his head to the side. 

The Soldier didn’t retalitate. 

“I told you to obey these men!” the handler roared at him. 

The Soldier wanted to clarify that the men hadn’t adhered to protocol. He wanted to ask for more detailed instructions about what he was supposed to do. 

But he was in the wrong, and he wouldn’t speak out of turn. 

Something else he just knew. 

Ready to comply

These words fell out of him easily. Again.

“Carry on.” The handler was addressing the other men, but his eyes remained fixed on the Soldier.

“No thanks,” one of the men said. “He’s a beast. An abomination. I don’t want to end up like Dmitriev.”

“Keep him sedated if it won’t affect the tests,” the handler told the other men. “You!” He directed this at someone out of the Soldier’s line of sight. “Remove the body! I’ll stay here to keep him in line. Soldier!”

The Soldier straightened up, ready and alert.

“There will be consequences for your non-compliance,” the handler said. 

Those words filled the Soldier with a chilling fear. They seemed familiar. An image of the red notebook appeared in his mind. The handler didn’t have it, but the Soldier was certain that the words came from within it’s pages.

The Soldier remained with his eyes fixed on the handler as the other men scurried back into movement. Someone dragged the dead man away. With a hand that shook slightly, the man who had called him a beast knelt down and shone a light in his eyes.

“Oh well.” This voice came from behind him. “Better him than one of us.

The man behind him audibly spat, and the man shining a light in his eyes let out a laugh, more confident now the Soldier had been put back in line and was clearly behaving.

He turned off the little light. “I never like him anyway,” the man laughed. “Fucking commie.”

 

------------------------------------------------

 

“What did you mean by what you said to Nagel?”

As Bucky meticulously scrubbed away the grime, dirt, and blood from his metal arm with a borrowed handkerchief, he halted in response to Sam’s question. He’d been sitting here for ages, mindlessly rubbing the same spot on his arm over and over, trying to distract himself from the memories that meeting with Nagel had evoked in him.

Zemo’s handkerchief slipped from his grasp and landed on the plane’s floor. The hum of the engines filled the cabin, punctuating the tense silence that hung between them.

“Excuse me?” Bucky’s mind raced as he played dumb. 

“You told Nagel you remembered him,” Sam prompted. 

Bucky glanced at the cockpit where Zemo had opted to stay during the flight. He didn’t want Zemo to overhear this conversation and decide to ‘weigh in’. 

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Bucky deflected, avoiding direct eye contact with Sam, silently pleading for him to drop the subject.

Sam persisted, undeterred by Bucky’s evasive tactics. “Was Nagel one of the scientists you told me about at the hotel?” Sam’s voice was steady but inquisitive. “You mentioned experiments after the Winter Soldier Program failed, and Nagel mentioned that as well.”

Bucky cursed himself for divulging too much to Sam, for letting his guard down. And he cursed Nagel for providing unnecessary background information instead of simply answering the questions he’d been asked.

“It’s not important to the mission,” Bucky said dismissively, hoping to dissuade Sam from pursuing the matter any further. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

Sam appeared to disagree, but he was empathic enough to understand Bucky’s distress and didn’t ask any further questions about Nagel. Bucky felt a wave of relief wash over him, grateful that Sam didn’t pry any deeper. However, Sam wasn’t quite ready to let go of the topic entirely.

“It doesn’t seem like Nagel was involved with the experiments on Isaiah,” Sam pondered aloud. He sounded unsure and uneasy. “I guess that must have happened earlier, because Isaiah would have escaped by the time Nagel came into the picture.”

Bucky felt himself relax as Sam moved the topic away from focusing on him.

“But it bothers me,” Sam continued, his voice filled with a blend of empathy and frustration. “The way Nagel talked about him. The way he referred to Isaiah as the ‘American test subject,’ as if he wasn’t even human. It’s chilling, you know?”

Bucky nodded. He was aware of the dehumanisation Isaiah Bradley would have faced. He’d had a good dose of that experience himself, after all.

Prodded, poked, stripped, manhandled. Move over here. Move over there. Lie down. Get up.

He wished Sam would drop the subject.

“All the suffering Isaiah endured,” Sam continued, “all the people who knew but said nothing. The cruelty, the pain... It’s horrifying to think about the lengths people will go to, the harm they’ll inflict on innocent lives, all in pursuit of creating and controlling super-soldiers.”

Bucky stole a glance over at Sam. On the surface, it seemed that Sam was just talking about Isaiah, but the way Sam looked at him hinted at a deeper meaning behind Sam’s words. The subtle crease on Sam’s forehead and the knowing gleam in his eyes hinted at a hidden subtext. Sam was subtly discussing Bucky’s personal experiences without making it obvious that he was doing so.

The corners of Bucky’s eyes stung. He cleared his throat. 

“They’re a dream that needs to die,” he said, echoing the same words he’d once said to Christina about super-soldiers. 

There was a long pause. 

“Bucky,” Sam got Bucky’s attention. “You know you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But you can, you know. Tell me. Anything.” 

Bucky remained silent, his gaze fixed on a distant point in space, his expression stoic. Despite Sam’s hints, guesses, or direct questions, Bucky had secrets he would never reveal to Sam. Their shaky relationship, or friendship, or whatever it was, needed no more baggage. It was messy enough already. 

He knew the conversation would extend beyond Nagel and the scientists. Sam would want to know more. The more he shared with Sam, the more he risked sharing. Allowing a single crack was the first step to fully opening the door. The thought of Sam knowing about Fennhoff, Markarov, Rumlow, and all the rest was unbearable.

And the memories as well. Bucky had been learning through nasty experience how focusing on one small detail could open the flood gate to more horrific memories that he just couldn’t cope with.

Elizabeth Dugan.

Yori.

Peggy Carter and what had happened in 1960.

General Markarov.

Wilfred Nagel.

He’d vowed to stop seeking memories out; sharing anything with Sam would just bring even more back. Just the same as seeing Nagel had.

He felt nauseous just thinking about those scientists and the things he’d let them do to him. He felt dirty, disgusting, weak, and ashamed. Yes, he'd spoken to Christina about it and she'd tried to help him work through his self-disgust and shame, but the feelings were still there.

Sam could hint and guess all he wanted about the Nagel and the experiments, but Bucky would never confirm anything to him. 

Even though he knew how important this mission was, there was a part of him that wished he’d never sought Sam out that day they went to Germany and met Walker and the Flag Smashers. Maybe it would have been better to have stayed home and remained in blissful ignorance. But then, he’d never have reunited with Sam. And even though things were still up and down between them, he was glad to have had this opportunity to try and make things right between them.

Bucky picked up the fallen handkerchief and, even though his metal arm was already spotless, he continued to clean it. The repetitive motion was soothing and grounded him.

“Have you heard from Torres yet?” he asked, trying to make his voice sound light and breezy. “Where are we headed next?”

 

Their next stop was Latvia.

It hadn’t taken long for Torres to reply to Sam’s request to find Donya Madani, the woman Nagel had told them about. By searching the Eastern European refugee camp database, he located her and discovered that she had recently died from tuberculosis. It appeared she had been some kind of mother-figure to Karli Morgenthau, who’d contacted Nagel to see if he could cure her. 

Sam received Torres’ information and then notified Zemo and Oeznik to alter their course for Riga. 

Bucky was relieved that Sam had shifted his attention away from Nagel. Sam seemed deeply affected by the information he had heard about Donya Madani. 

“The Flag Smashers were stealing vaccines,” Sam said, “in Germany when we met them for the first time. All those people displaced by the blip, shoved together in refugee camps and pretty much forgotten about, stands to reason that illness and disease would be a big problem.”

Sam let out a deep sigh, ran his hand over his short hair, and stared gloomily out of the window. 

“What’s wrong?” Bucky could tell that Sam had a lot on his mind and he’d been pensive ever since Torres had updated him. 

“It’s just...” Sam struggled to find the right words, his expression troubled. “We’re treating the Flag Smashers as enemies, right?”

Bucky shrugged in agreement. “I suppose so.”

“And yet I can’t really shake off the feeling that we’re the bad ones here,” Sam said. 

“People are rarely divided into good or bad,” Bucky told him. “The world’s more complicated than that.” 

“We don’t know what it was like for those who survived Thanos’ snap,” Sam said. “Sarah’s told me a bit, but her experience is different from Karli’s and the others who are now stuck in refugee camps. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Karli’s what… about 19? 20?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Imagine being a teenager and having pretty much everyone around you just vanish,” Sam said, “and then moving to another country, because they’re desperate to fill the gap, only to be shoved away again five years later because there’s no room for you. And then treated like an annoyance. An inconvenience. Allocated scarce resources, made to live with complete strangers, and moved to a country you have no link to, maybe not speaking the language, and then watching those around you die of perfectly treatable illnesses because no-one is giving you the resources you need. Barely even treated as human.”

Bucky could tell that this was weighing heavily on Sam’s mind, and he knew that Sam wasn’t wrong. Everything he’d said was true. The experiences of the blip refugees had been, and continued to be, horrific. 

“Can we honestly say,” Sam continued, “that you and I wouldn’t be doing the exact same thing as Karli and the others if we and the ones we loved were in that situation?”

“I guess not,” Bucky answered, his thoughts turning to his parents, sisters, and Steve. He would have done anything to keep them safe when they were living.

“I keep trying to think of a solution that moves away from violence,” Sam said. “But it goes beyond me and what one person can do. What is needed is real systemic change. Karli and the others, they’re just products of their environment. We stop them, there’ll just be others. They’re not creating the problem, they’re just responding to it.”

Bucky could understand Sam’s point, but he could also see a glaring issue with it.

“They’re super-soldiers,” he pointed out. “If they’d done all this as normal humans, fair play. Stealing resources, organising protests - you and I wouldn’t need to be involved. But they’ve chosen to move beyond that. They chose to take Nagel’s serum, and that makes them dangerous.”

“Does it?” Sam leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Bucky in a piercing, intense stare. “Does having the serum inherently make you dangerous?”

Bucky swallowed. The mantra, mad, bad or dead, played out in his mind once again, as it always did whenever he thought about super soldiers.

They all end up mad, bad, or dead.

 

“I don’t think so,” Sam answered his own question. “I think there’s a peaceful solution. I’m just struggling to find it.”

Bucky hoped Sam would find it. Bucky wished he could share Sam’s optimism, but deep down, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that only one outcome awaited Karli and her comrades. Death. He couldn’t believe they’d abandon their cause. And how do you successfully lock up a group of Super Soldiers? 

Bucky let Sam ponder the issue in silence until eventually Zemo rejoined them. Zemo placed sandwiches on the table, between Bucky and Sam. He then sat opposite them. Sam eyed Zemo critically out of the corner of his eye. 

“I think we should take him back to prison and carry on without him.” Sam gestured towards Zemo. “He’s a menace.”

“I still think I’m invaluable to the…” Zemo started speaking, but Sam cut him off abruptly.

“You shot Nagel!” Sam practically roared at the other man. 

“And you are very welcome for that.” Zemo’s voice was smooth. “Both of you.”

Bucky’s head shot up. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“We all know that Nagel had to be killed,” Zemo continued. “I spared either one of you from having to do it yourself. You’re welcome.”

He spoke to both of them, but with the last “you’re welcome,” he fixed his eyes on Bucky’s, and Bucky couldn’t help but think the words were mainly directed at him.

Sam immediately launched into a heated debate with Zemo, attacking Zemo’s premise that Nagel had had to die. Ignoring both of them, Bucky focused on his thoughts about Nagel and his talk with Zemo the previous day.

Do you want him killed? Zemo had asked. Do you want to take revenge?

It had taken Bucky quite a while to find the answer to that question. But when he had found the answer and told Zemo that no, he didn’t want Nagel killed; he had meant it. 

Had Zemo been testing him? he wondered. Seeing if he could rely on the Winter Soldier to ‘take care’ of Nagel himself. And when Bucky had failed - or maybe passed? - that test, Zemo had realised that it would be down to him to finish Nagel off, knowing that neither Sam nor Bucky would. 

You’re welcome

Like he’d done it as a favour to him. He’d never thank Zemo for that. Zemo could pretend that murdering Nagel had been for his benefit all he wanted, but he was wrong. Bucky never asked Zemo to kill Nagel for him. 

Dealing with Zemo was a frustrating and puzzling experience. All these strange little tests and manipulations. What was it all in aid of? What was his ultimate agenda? 

In a way, Bucky realised with a shuddering horror, Zemo’s actions and behaviour were reminiscent of Fennhoff and all the games he used to play.

Fennhoff had always been deliberately and intentionally malicious and despite not sensing the same vibe from Zemo, Bucky still felt uneasy by the similarity between them. 

Perhaps it would be best to follow Sam’s suggestion and return Zemo to prison, but Bucky’s curiosity about Zemo made him keen to see how this all played out. And also, as Zemo had said the day before, the mission takes priority.

“We need him, Sam,” Bucky said. “You know we do. We’d never have got even this far without him.”

“And you won’t get much further.” Zemo took over from Bucky. “I have a place we can go in Riga. I’ve already made some calls to get things ready for our arrival, and I know where the refugee camps are situated.”

Sam slumped back in his seat, defeated.

“How come you have all these mansions all over the world, anyway?” he asked. 

Zemo proudly raised his chin, and declared, “I am a baron, Sam.” Then his expression quickly turned to sadness and he lowered his head. “Or I was. I was royalty before you and your friends destroyed my country.”

Bucky waited for Sam to say that he’d had nothing to do with what had happened in Sokovia. Bucky knew perfectly well that when the Avengers were fighting robots in Sokovia, Sam was in Moldova following a false trail Bucky had left for him. 

But Sam said nothing. 

“Do you know what happened to Sokovia?” Zemo asked them. Bucky noticed Zemo was clenching his fists so tight in his lap that his knuckles had turned white. 

Bucky remembered reading about Sokovia in a newspaper back in 2016. A picture was taken of Steve as he carried children onto a helicarrier to ensure their safety. He’d torn the photograph out and stored it into one of his notebooks. In the days that followed he’d actively sought out all the news he could about Sokovia, cutting out and keeping each photograph of Steve that was published and reading, and re-reading, every word that was written about him, committing it all to memory.

Sam nodded.

“It got cannibalised.” Zemo’s voice was bitter. “After Novi Grad was destroyed the country couldn’t survive. It was absorbed by the surrounding countries, it crumbled, until there was nothing left of what it had once been. All that history. All that culture. All gone.”

The weight of Zemo’s accusation hung heavy in the air, and neither Sam nor Bucky knew how to respond.

“The Avengers did that,” Zemo continued, his words dripping with resentment. “You and your friends decimated my home, my family, my country. Because of Oeznik, I haven’t lost my wealth, but what does wealth matter when everything else is gone?”

Bucky shifted in his seat, feeling uneasy even though he knew he and Sam had no part in the destruction of Sokovia. Painting Zemo as the villain seemed easy, but as Bucky just told Sam, people can’t be neatly labelled as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There were always nuances. Shades of grey. People were complicated and Zemo was no exception.

“Since I’ve been imprisoned, I haven’t been able to visit the memorial,” Zemo said. “Have either of you been?”

Bucky looked down at the floor of the plane, for some reason feeling guilty for never having visited the memorial to the lost country of Sokovia. Zemo may be trying to manipulate them, playing on their emotions, and taking advantage of their feelings of guilt, but his grief and sorrow was still real. 

“No, of course you haven’t,” Zemo answered for them. “Why would you?”

Zemo gestured to the sandwiches that remained untouched on the table. 

“Eat up,” he said. 

Bucky felt a strange, desperate urge to make it up to Zemo, even though he knew he wasn’t to blame for Zemo’s emotional pain. He met Sam’s eyes and could see that Sam was feeling the same. 

“Thanks Zemo,” Sam said, picking up one of the sandwiches and taking a bite. Bucky followed his lead, and to his relief and surprise, the sandwich actually stayed down.

Notes:

The flash back scene at the beginning is an extension of Bucky's little flash in the previous chapter. I'm deliberately being a little vague as to the exact time this takes place and who all the people are (although one of them is, of course, Nagel).

The handler might possibly be Alexander Pierce (hence the slap) and I'm pretty certain the soldier is no longer in Russia but has been transferred to the US by this point.

Chapter 37: The Nature of the Serum

The Nature of the Serum

 

“I’ve had to let Walker know where we are,” Sam told Bucky, as they followed Zemo through the cobbled streets of Riga.

Bucky expressed his dissatisfaction with an audible groan. “Did you have to?” he asked. “He’s just going to get in the way and cause problems.” 

“Yes, I had to,” Sam said. “And you know very well why, so don’t you dare complain about this.”

Well then, Bucky thought, they’d just have to get in and out of Riga as quickly as possible. Explore the refugee camps to locate Karli and leave before Walker could join them. It almost made him smile, thinking of leading Walker on a wild goose chase all across Eastern Europe, always one step behind and never catching up to them. Not so dissimilar to the merry dance he'd led Sam on for almost two years after he'd escaped from Hydra.

“Riga is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.” Zemo had been having fun acting as their tour guide since the plane landed, pointing out areas of interest and waxing lyrical about things such as ‘Jugendstil architecture’. 

Zemo gestured towards the river, mentioning the abundance of scenic walks along its banks. “Daugava River. It runs all the way through the city. I know a path that takes you right up to the Vansu Bridge. Stunning at night.”

“We’re not here to take in the sights, Zemo,” Sam said. “No side-tracking, no detours. Take us to your house, then we’ll decide what to do next.”

“Already here.” Zemo pointed to a grand white building with an elaborate entrance just ahead of them. As Bucky’s eyes followed Zemo’s gesture, something else caught his eye and grabbed his attention.

On the ground, just outside Zemo’s home, lay a small black ball with a marble-like colouring. He let out a small gasp as he recognised what it was.

One kimoyo bead. Kimoyo beads were the preferred way the Wakandans communicated among themselves. 

His heart raced as he realised what this meant. The Wakandans were here for Zemo. And they were going to be furious with Bucky for his involvement in getting Zemo out of prison. 

The Wakandans’ decision to get involved in this did not surprise him. It was, however, surprising that they hadn’t revealed themselves yet. They would have known the moment Zemo escaped from prison, and they would have figured out Bucky’s involvement in his escape.

“Uh...” He caught Sam and Zemo’s attention. “I’m just… going to… circle the perimeter. Check if it's safe.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sam said immediately.

“No, don’t.” Bucky knew he must sound very evasive and suspicious right now. “You need to keep an eye on Zemo. Besides, I could do with some time alone right now.”

Concern flashed across Sam’s face. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, of course.” Bucky knew that he sounded anything other than alright. He just wanted to get away from Sam and Zemo as quickly as possible so he could talk to the person the Wakandans had sent before they decided to just whisk Zemo away. 

Bucky attempted to reassure Sam with a smile, but Sam seemed far from convinced. Sam appeared to have more to say, but Zemo had already entered the building by himself, leaving Sam torn between his worry for Bucky and his desire to keep a close eye on Zemo.

“Don’t take too long,” Sam called, as he hastened after Zemo to ensure he wasn’t up to any mischief. 

Bucky picked up the bead, then stepped back and looked around. 

The Wakandans left the kimoyo bead there on purpose. If their intention was to capture Zemo, they would have done it by now. They wanted Bucky to know they were here, and they would have left a trail for him to find them. 

He found a second bead and realised where they were leading him. A remote place, somewhere secluded. Somewhere to talk unobserved.

At least they were affording him this courtesy. They were giving him the benefit of the doubt, the chance to explain himself, and he was deeply grateful for that. The knowledge that he was one of the few outside of Wakanda to earn such respect only deepened his feelings of guilt. 

He picked up a third bead and decided he’d had enough of this game. It was time for the person to reveal their identity. 

“I think you dropped something,” he called out. 

He felt a faint presence behind him, sensing her before she uttered a word. She jumped down into the space he’d just occupied as lightly and nimbly as a cat. If he’d not been aware of what to listen for, he might not have noticed for all his super-soldier senses. 

He turned.

The woman standing before him was Ayo.

Ayo, Bucky thought to himself, of course it had to be Ayo. He would be willing to bet that she volunteered for this task the moment the Wakandans realised Bucky was involved with Zemo’s prison breakout. She was the person who would elicit the strongest feelings of guilt and remorse from him, and she knew it. 

Ayo served as a general in the Dora Milaje, the elite Wakandan military composed of the country’s strongest, toughest, and best-trained women. Probably the best in the world. They were honourable, steadfast in their loyalty to Wakanda, and lethal in combat.

Ayo was the one who had liberated him from the shackles of the Winter Soldier programming.

Princess Shuri had done all the technical work, but Ayo was the one who tested its success.

He recalled her slowly circling him as she recited the trigger words while he stared into the flickering flames of their campfire; hoping, wishing, and dreading failure as memory after memory of life as the Winter Soldier played out in his mind with each spoken word.

He'd been too frightened of failure to allow Shuri to tell Steve about their decision to test Bucky, so he and Ayo had been alone. It wasn't that he doubted Shuri's intelligence and skill, and luckily, she didn’t take offence. It was because he couldn’t allow himself to hope.

He had long since learned never to hope, as hope could often lead to immense pain. Hope could be terrible. Far better to expect the worst rather than endure the crushing disappointment of shattered hopes.

But it had worked. Ayo reeled off the trigger words that controlled him one by one, and they had no effect on him.

The relief was unimaginable. Almost unbearable. And when Ayo told him ‘you are free’ he was so overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment that he actually cried.

Of all the people he had come to know during his short stay in Wakanda, Ayo was the one he had formed the closest bond with because of this shared experience. He wouldn’t exactly call them friends, as the Dora Milaje didn’t readily embrace friendship, especially with outsiders. Their duty to their king and country always took precedence. 

Now, she stared at him as if he were the enemy, as if all their time together in Wakanda never happened. Because now, he supposed, he was the enemy because he’d got himself involved with an enemy of Wakanda. The man who’d murdered their king.

“How could you free Zemo?” Ayo asked. 

At least she was willing to hear him out. At the very least, it was a sign that their experience in Wakanda still meant something.

Bucky decided against pleading for plausible deniability. He bit his tongue and resisted the urge to say the words, I didn’t break Zemo out of prison . 

He wouldn’t insult Ayo like that. She deserved no less than the full truth, no evasion tactics.

“I needed his help,” Bucky said. “Sam and I… we’re trying to stop a group of super soldiers and Zemo has information and resources…” 

He hesitated under the power of Ayo’s intense gaze. She stalked towards him, silently and fluidly like a cat, the vibranium spear grasped in her hand. 

“He killed our king,” she hissed.

Bucky nodded and looked down at the ground as she circled him. It reminded him of that night in the Wakandan forest when she proclaimed his freedom. He felt she was doing it on purpose, to evoke that exact memory in him to further add weight to his feelings of guilt.

“Wakanda did everything for you,” she reminded him. “We spent considerable time and resources for you to shed the Winter Soldier programming like a tainted fur.”

“I’ll never stop being grateful for that,” Bucky said quickly and sincerely. “I owe both you and Shuri a debt I can never repay, and T’Challa...” he hesitated, concerned he had crossed a line by mentioning T’Challa, who had perished alongside Steve in the final fight against Thanos.

Ayo ceased her furious pacing and positioned herself in front of him, her unblinking gaze fixed on him, waiting for him to continue.

“I just need to finish this,” Bucky said, “and then he’ll go back to prison. You have my word. I’ll take him back myself. I just need more time. This is important. I have to do this.”

Something shifted in her gaze and her face changed into a look he couldn’t interpret.

“What have you got yourself into this time, White Wolf?” She spoke softly now, no longer angry, but instead sounding sorrowful.

Bucky winced at the reminder of the name the Wakandans had given him. The reminder of how much the Wakandans had done for him before T’Challa’s death caused another pang of guilt in his heart.

Here he was now, betraying T’Challa’s memory by collaborating with his father’s killer. 

T’Challa had invited him to stay in Wakanda for as long as he desired. He’d been offered a home there. A life free from running. Even a position in T’Challa’s court if he wanted it, an incredible honour. T’Challa bestowed the title of ‘White Wolf’ upon him as a recognition of his bond with Wakanda. A connection to Wakanda that would last forever. A home that would always be available to him if needed.

Bucky knew he probably could have returned to Wakanda after helping to defeat Thanos, but T’Challa had just died. Shuri and her mother, along with members of the Wakandan armies, gathered around T’Challa’s body, subsumed in grief and loss, and Bucky hadn’t wanted to burden them.

Steve had also just died, bequeathing the shield to Sam. Another group of people he didn’t know were gathered around Tony Stark’s body. Bucky couldn’t shake the emptiness and guilt that gnawed at him, as if fate had spared him while taking away those who deserved to live.

With this mindset, he approached Secretary Ross and gave himself up. He’d been on the run because he was still vulnerable to being controlled. Now he was fixed, he would face the consequences without fear of Hydra reclaiming him. 

It had been the right thing to do.

“You have eight hours.” Ayo’s voice broke through his thoughts, firm and resolute. “Then we’re taking him, whether you still need him or not.”

Bucky refrained from asking for more time. He knew that pressing this issue would only anger her. She was generous, granting him even that short period of grace, and if he requested more time, she would have every right to withdraw her offer completely. Instead, he nodded and watched her leave, feeling a combination of relief and irritation. 

 

He retraced his steps and returned to the spot where he had left Zemo and Sam. As he entered the house, he could hear Zemo and Sam bickering.

“The Wakandans are here,” he announced as he joined them. “They want him,” he jerked his head towards Zemo, “back in prison.”

Zemo’s face paled, and he fell silent.

“I convinced them to give us a bit of time,” Bucky continued, “but they’ve not given us long. So we’d better get moving.”

“Thank you for speaking up for me,” Zemo said.

“No-one’s speaking up for you,” Bucky corrected him. “You’re still here because you’re useful. So don’t prove me wrong. Do something useful, or I’ll get them right now and hand you over.”

“Buck…” Sam got Bucky’s attention. He had his phone out and was staring at it, a horrified expression on his face. 

“What is it?” The shell-shocked look on Sam’s face was alarming, and Bucky pushed aside all thoughts of the Wakandans and Zemo and focused on whatever it was that had rendered Sam so shocked.

“It’s Karli,” Sam said. He paused, scrolling on his phone, before continuing. “It says here that she just bombed a GRC supply depot.” Sam swallowed. “With people locked inside. Three dead, and eleven severely injured.” Sam shook his head in disbelief. Bucky felt deeply for Sam. Only a short time ago, Sam had been defensive and sympathetic towards Karli and her comrades, feeling solidarity with them. And then she had to go and do something like this.

“It says,” Sam continued, “that the Flag Smashers have taken responsibility for the attack, and if their demands aren’t met, there will be other bombings.”

Sam looked down at his phone and remained silent. He looked troubled.

“You really want to send me back in chains with the Wakandans?” Zemo asked. “And risk leaving Karli and the others to commit further acts of terrorism?”

Zemo’s words snapped Sam out of his stupor. “They’re not terrorists!”

Bucky saw Zemo raise an eyebrow at Sam’s words and silently willed Zemo to not say anything. Even if Zemo had sensed Bucky’s hidden plea, Bucky was certain he’d have ignored it anyway. 

“What else would you call someone who commits these actions and makes such threats?” Zemo challenged Sam. “And it’ll only get worse.”

“That’s rich, coming from you!” Sam snapped back at him. “Karli’s not a terrorist. She’s just a kid, and she’s troubled and she thinks she’s doing the right thing. She’s just going about it the wrong way.”

“ Three dead and eleven severely injured ,” Zemo parroted Sam’s words back to him. “I wonder how many of those have husbands, wives or children.”

Bucky saw a muscle clench in Sam’s jaw. 

“Zemo…” Bucky said quietly. Zemo looked at Bucky before turning his gaze back to Sam. He licked his lips, took a deep breath, and then tried a different tactic.

“You’re seeing something in Karli that isn’t there.” Zemo’s voice was no longer confrontational. Instead, he sounded deliberately soothing as if he were trying to calm Sam down. “She may be, as you say, a troubled young lady, but she’s dangerous. She’s radicalised, and she will escalate until she is stopped. And she won’t be easy to stop.”

There was a glaring similarity between Zemo’s words and Bucky’s own thoughts about Karli that he’d shared with Sam during their conversation on the plane. He’d practically said the same words to Sam, and he hated the thought that he and Zemo might share the same views or have a similar mindset. He hoped that Sam wouldn’t make the same realisation.

“You say stop ,” Sam said, “but I know you mean killed . And I won’t allow it. I believe there is a peaceful way to end this. There must be.”

Zemo’s voice, still smooth and sympathetic, contrasted with the chilling nature of his words. “She will need to be killed,” he calmly asserted, “or she will kill you. It can only end in one of these two ways.” 

Sam shook his head.

“She’s a super-soldier, Sam.” Zemo’s voice now regained its former, harsher tone. “It can only get worse. It’s the nature of the serum.”

Bucky moved back, physically distancing himself from the two men, until he bumped into the wall with a soft thud. Zemo’s words were honest and real and they unsettled him. Bucky knew he could have said the exact same thing himself. 

“The serum corrupts everyone it touches,” Zemo continued to explain.

“Well, I don’t accept that!” Sam retorted loudly, and angrily. 

They all end up mad, bad or dead , Bucky thought.

Even Steve died. 

But Steve hadn’t been corrupted, though. Bucky spoke up in Steve's defence before he even realised he had opened his mouth.

“Maybe you’re wrong, Zemo," Bucky said. Sam and Zemo both turned towards him, their attention drawn by his unexpected remark. “The serum never corrupted Steve.”

Zemo stared at him, an inscrutable look on his face, and Bucky regretted speaking up. 

“Maybe not.” Zemo sounded thoughtful. “But then… There's only ever been one Steve Rogers. And there’s always the exception that proves the rule, isn’t there? Lightning rarely strikes twice.”

A fleeting image of Isaiah Bradley flashed across Bucky’s mind. His eyes flickered to Sam, who was still glaring at Zemo, and he teetered on the edge of saying something about Isaiah to Sam, but he decided against it. It was probably not a good idea to make Zemo aware about the existence of yet another super-soldier. He knew Isaiah must be on Sam's mind. What other reason could explain Sam’s strong defensive reaction to Zemo’s words? Where else would this steadfast and, in Bucky’s view, irrational belief in Karli and the other super-soldiers have stemmed from, if not Isaiah Bradley? 

“I think we’re running out of time,” Bucky said, raising his hands, signalling to both Sam and Zemo that they needed to calm down. “We’re not killing anyone. Right now, we’re just trying to find Karli - not kill her. Zemo - where are we going next?”

 

The refugee enclave in Riga did not reflect the architectural beauty of the buildings surrounding it. The shanty town, hastily built, lacked soul and emanated an unmistakable scent of despair and depression as they stepped through the gates, entering a bleak looking courtyard. A sign next to the enormous gates proclaimed GRC Resettlement Camp.

Resettlement Camp

Bucky thought that was a rather disingenuous way to describe it. But then, the GRC was all about image. About seeming to do the right thing, rather than actually doing anything. No-one was resettling the blip refugees. They had just been abandoned here.

“Let’s split up.” Sam was looking around the courtyard as he spoke. “I’ll check the upper levels. You talk to people round here - don’t let Zemo out of your sight.”

Bucky gave a nod and watched as Sam entered the building. He looked around to see Zemo already engaging some people in conversation. 

It didn’t take long for Bucky to realise that no-one here would speak to him. Each person he approached took one glance at him and promptly fled. He felt self-conscious, worried that he might have been recognised. He checked his left arm multiple times to ensure the metal stayed covered and out of sight. It’s possible that they recognised him despite not seeing his arm. Perhaps they distrusted and feared any strangers, regardless of their identity. Or maybe it was the way he moved that made them suspicious of him. With over seven decades of being a soldier, maybe there was something in his body language, in his demeanour, that made them cautious. 

He gave up and waited for Sam. Despite assuming Sam would have more luck, with his natural charisma and friendly attitude, Sam joined Bucky soon afterward, shaking his head. 

“No luck,” Sam said. “No-one would tell me anything useful. You?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Well, now what!?” Sam sounded exasperated. “How can we find Karli if no-one will talk to us? We can’t be stuck here, we just can’t and - what the Hell is Zemo doing! ?”

Bucky’s head shot round in the direction that Sam was staring, looking aghast, just in time to see Zemo casually approach a group of children, bringing a small bag out of his coat pocket. 

“What on Earth…?” Sam made a movement, as if he were about to stride over to Zemo, but Bucky held out an arm to stop him.

“Just wait,” Bucky said, his attention fixed on Zemo, who was now offering some colourful sweets to the children as he engaged them in conversation. 

“I don’t know…” Sam sounded dubious and his gaze swept the courtyard as if looking out for enraged parents. “This is some weird shit.”

A little girl whispered something in Zemo’s ear and Zemo smiled and rewarded her with a sweet. Despite feeling just as uneasy as Sam, Bucky continued to hold his arm in front of him to stop him from confronting Zemo.

Bucky understood Sam’s unease, but told himself that there wasn’t anything creepy or predatory about what Zemo was doing. Zemo was a father who had lost a child, and he knew how to interact with children and maybe… just maybe… he could find something out from one of them. 

Zemo sauntered back to them after handing the entire bag of sweets to the little girl who had whispered in his ear.

“Any success?” Zemo asked them both casually. “No? I thought not. But you’re in luck. Once again, I’ve proven my worth.”

“You know where Karli is?” Sam sounded disbelieving. 

“No, I don’t know where she is,” Zemo began walking and Sam and Bucky both followed him, leaving the resettlement camp behind them, “but I know where she’ll be later this afternoon.”

“Where?” Bucky asked.

“Oh no,” Zemo said, “I tell you what I know, and then there’ll be nothing keeping you from handing me over to the Wakandans. You’ll have to keep me around if you want to find her.”

Sam sped up, passing Zemo, and then halted in front of him, forcing Zemo to stop. 

“You think this is a game?” Sam’s voice was cold and hard. 

“No, Sam,” Zemo replied. “I think this is of the utmost importance and I am doing my best to prevent myself from being taken out of this mission before I’ve had a chance to complete it.”

“You don’t know anything,” Sam accused. “You’re bluffing, so we don’t let them take you back to prison.”

“There’s going to be a funeral this afternoon,” Zemo said loudly, “for Donya Madani. That’s what the little girl told me. Karli was at the camp yesterday, urging everyone to come together for an important announcement.”

“And you won’t tell us where the funeral is?” Sam asked. 

“I don’t think so,” Zemo said. “I prefer to keep my leverage.” 

Sam looked like he wanted to strangle Zemo, meanwhile Zemo had a look on his face that suggested that he was enjoying Sam’s frustration immensely.

“Where are we going now?” Bucky asked, hoping to diffuse some of the tension by pushing the conversation on.

“Back to the house,” Zemo said. “We’ve got some time and we’ve got to make some preparations.”

“Preparations for what?” Sam asked brusquely.

“We’re about to confront a group of super-soldiers, Sam,” Zemo reminded them. “This could get messy and dangerous, and we’ve got to be prepared.”

 

Back at the house, Sam stormed off into a separate room, muttering something about calling Sharon.

Zemo made Bucky a hot drink he called ‘cherry blossom tea’ and offered him some Turkish delight. “Irresistible,” Zemo said as he held out the paper bag.

Bucky resisted them, but did sip at the tea which just tasted like muddy water. 

“You understand what I was saying earlier, don’t you, James?” Zemo asked him. “You understand that Karli and the others will never stop. More innocent people will die. We must not let them continue. They cannot be allowed to live.”

Bucky made a noncommittal sound while pretending to drink his horrible tea. 

“If the Dora Milaje take me before I can finish the mission,” Zemo continued earnestly, “I must know that someone will finish it in my absence.”

“It will be finished,” Bucky said firmly.

Zemo didn’t look convinced but before he could press any further, Sam returned, still looking furious.

“I had Oeznik bring your things from the plane,” Zemo said. “You’ll want your wings when we go to confront Karli and the others. I imagine this will get messy and dangerous.”

“No,” Sam said. “I’m not going there dressed like I’m expecting a fight. What message would that send? It’s a funeral.”

“Exactly.” Zemo snapped his fingers. “Karli doesn’t want a fight with her loved ones around, especially children. It’s something we can use to our advantage.”

Sam gave Zemo a disgusted look.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” he said. Then, “Actually, as it’s you, I can believe it.”

Zemo shot a look at Bucky, a look that said ‘ back me up here ’. Bucky just stared incredulously back, dumbfounded that Zemo would think he would be his ally here. Weren’t they just discussing earlier how Karli’s actions caused harm to innocent civilians? And now here was Zemo casually suggesting picking a fight with super-soldiers and using innocent people, and children, practically as human shields.

Zemo was so full of shit.

“I am just going to talk to her,” Sam said. “Find some… I don’t know… common ground. Let her know that I can see where she's coming from. That I understand her. That place..." Sam shook his head. "No-one should have to live like that. They're desperate, and frightened and angry and Karli - she's giving them hope. What Karli needs - what they all need - is to feel listened to. To be part of conversations about how to improve the lives of the refugees. This can have a peaceful resolution, and I can show her that."

Zemo muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

“If you disagree,” Sam said, “I’m sure Bucky can tell the Wakandans we’re ready to hand you over.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Zemo raised both hands as if in surrender. “You are in charge, after all. I am simply and humbly offering some suggestions.”

He offered the small bag to Sam as a peace offering. 

“Want some Turkish Delight?” Zemo asked. “They’re irresistible.”

Notes:

All information written about Riga in this chapter is stuff I read on google. I'm sorry if there is anything glaringly incorrect.

Also I know I have swapped some small things around in this chapter - like Sam being the one to read about Karli bombing the GRC depot, rather than Bucky, and Sam also being the one who is more angry at Zemo than Bucky is about him keeping things from them. I also moved some conversations round a bit. They're just very minor changes in this chapter from the show but they just made more sense to me to be this way. Also I don't like copying dialogue word for word from the show, I find that boring. So some things get skipped, some things get moved around, and some bits are given to other characters.

Also regarding T'Challa - when I was creating the first drafts for this story, this was before we knew how they'd write T'Challa's death, so I made the decision that he must have died in the battle at Endgame along with Steve, for the purposes of this story. Even though we've now had his death properly explained to us since then, I've decided to keep it this way.

Chapter 38: Hydra's Thrall

Notes:

Anyone else watch the Latvia scenes in TFATWS and feel that they just seem a little bit... disjointed? Things seem to jump around quite a bit and there are inconsistencies and things that just don't seem to make sense. I know the shooting of the show was impacted by Covid so I think that's why this particular episode seems like that. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Also, I was like - Sam asked for ten minutes to speak to Karli alone before the others joined him. And then there's that whole scene of Karli giving her speech at the funeral and then Sam speaks to Karli alone after everyone's left, and I'm sure that must be longer than ten minutes, but then we cut back to Bucky and Walker and Bucky's like- it's not been ten minutes yet. (I haven't watch the episode for a long time admittedly so I may be wrong about that).

Hydra’s Thrall

 

Bucky found himself in one of those moments, happening now with alarming frequency, when he would look around at his situation and the people he was with, and seriously question every decision in his life that had led him there.

There was Zemo, handcuffed to a pipe, acting as cool as a cucumber, like it didn’t matter that he was being restrained.

John Walker, ‘our new Captain America,’ and Lemar ‘Battlestar’ Hoskins, who had finally caught up with them, were also there. As they left Zemo’s house to confront Karli, Walker and Hoskins accosted them. Although Sam had never given Walker their exact location, Walker found them thanks to locals posting about seeing two Avengers on social media.

“You can start by explaining how you got him out of prison,” Walker had said as he and Lemar strode towards them in the street. He and Lemar were both decked in their ‘super hero’ gear. Walker in all his glaring Captain America glory. So much for trying to keep a low profile. At least Lemar’s outfit was more low key, less obnoxious and not as attention-seeking.

“I didn’t break Zemo out of prison.” The words fell easily from his lips as he had no qualms about being evasive with Walker. Technically the truth. “He broke himself out.”

Let them be as sceptical as they wanted, Bucky didn’t care what Walker and Lemar thought.

Since Walker had joined them, he had no intention of leaving. Walker and Lemar inserted themselves into the mission, with Walker ready to take charge until Sam intervened and set clear expectations and boundaries.

Walker wanted to do the same thing Zemo had suggested earlier. He wanted to confront Karli at the funeral, with her friends and loved ones around, and use that to force her to surrender herself and the other super soldiers. Sam was clear, as he had been earlier with Zemo, that he would not allow that, and that if Walker wanted to be involved he would have to do things Sam’s way. 

Lemar backed Sam up. That was a surprise. Bucky hadn’t really been paying much attention to Lemar, assuming he would just be a Walker sycophant, but seeing Lemar getting Walker to stand down and let Sam take the lead raised him in Bucky’s esteem. He realised that Walker and Lemar were more than just Captain America and Sidekick. They were friends. They listened to each other. They respected each other. 

Walker held Lemar’s opinion in high regard and treated him as an equal.

This realisation almost annoyed Bucky. Despite all his talk with Sam about people being complicated and nuanced, Bucky wanted to easily categorise Walker and Lemar as ‘bad’. He wanted to dislike them. He didn’t want to learn new things about them that fleshed them out and made them less like evil caricatures and more like real people. 

That’s how he found himself here. With Zemo, Lemar and Walker. Sam had gone on alone to speak with Karli after instructing Bucky to prevent Walker and Lemar from interrupting them and ruining everything. Walker had secured Zemo to a large pipe with handcuffs and Bucky had placed himself in the doorway Sam had gone through, acting as a barricade until Sam returned.

Twenty minutes passed. Walker was getting increasingly fidgety, pacing round and round in circles, Lemar trying to keep him calm. Bucky remained standing in the doorway that led to the hall where Donya Madani’s funeral was being held. He refused to budge until Sam returned. Bucky hoped that Sam’s instincts were correct and that he could talk Karli down. If anyone could do it, Sam could. Sam had an empathy and understanding for Karli and her friends that others lacked and if she just gave him a chance to speak, she would see that. Sam believed in solving this with words, and Bucky hoped Sam was right. 

He listened carefully, tuning out Walker’s sighs and the sounds of his boots on the hard floor as he paced, and he strained his ears for any signs that Sam was in trouble. Listening out for shouts, yells, the sound of fighting - anything like that and he’d rush in himself. He’d not wanted Sam to go in solo, to be exposed to the potential risk of being alone with eight angry super-soldiers. But he trusted Sam to know what he was doing. He had complete faith in Sam’s abilities. 

And he wasn’t going to disagree with Sam in front of Walker and Lemar. 

Walker’s pacing increased in its intensity, he kept glancing up towards an enormous clock on the wall, and started muttering to himself. 

Bucky braced himself for a confrontation. He could see Lemar doing the same. It was clear that Walker was becoming agitated and his patience was running out. 

Walker’s behaviour seemed off, Bucky noticed, as he observed the other man pacing around the room and mumbling to himself. Lemar’s cautious and concerned gaze towards Walker made Bucky realise that Lemar noticed it too. 

Maybe it was the pressure. Walker had some big shoes to fill, and he likely saw the Flag Smashers as his opportunity to prove himself. Walker was a normal human. He had no serum. He had no special abilities. All he had was the shield. Now he had to wait, while someone else faced the enemy. 

“No longer,” Walker muttered, his gaze fixed on the clock yet again. “No…”

Bucky centred himself in the doorway and prepared for conflict. In the corner of his eye he could see Zemo fiddling with the handcuffs. 

Walker pivoted smoothly and marched towards Bucky.

“It’s been long enough,” he said. 

Bucky pushed Walker back gently with his right arm, and remained in the doorway. Unmovable. Walker would have no chance at getting past him.

Walker looked behind Bucky, at the hallway that led to Karli, and for a moment it seemed like Walker was seriously considering trying to use force to bypass him. Walker straightened his shoulders and took a half-step forward, his arm poised to push Bucky aside, but then reconsidered. He stepped back, but drew himself up to his full height. They were almost the same height, Bucky realised. But Bucky had the edge on him. 

“It’s time to step in,” Walker said clearly. “It’s been long enough, Barnes.”

It wasn’t a request. It was an order.

No more calling him Bucky then. 

“Sam just needs a bit more time,” Bucky said. 

“It’s been thirty minutes.” Walker’s voice was terse, his jaw clenched. “He could be dead for all we know.” 

Bucky found it impossible to stop himself from showing a reaction to Walker’s words. He recovered quickly, but Walker’s eyes remained fixed on him, taking in every detail. Walker saw the small intake of breath. Walker saw Bucky’s eyes widen ever so slightly in panic at the thought that something awful could have happened to Sam.

He’d given Walker an opening, and Walker was willing to take full advantage of that.

“That’s your partner in there.” Walker jerked his head in the direction Sam had gone, down the hallway behind Bucky. “Are you willing to let your partner die?”

Bucky had a hold of himself now, prepared for Walker’s verbal attacks, and this time he managed not to show any reaction to Walker’s words. But he felt them. A twisting sensation took root in his stomach. And suddenly he wanted nothing more than to turn around himself and rush after Sam to make sure he was all-right.

But he didn’t. He held firm.

“Sam will be fine,” he said confidently, hoping he was right. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Walker backed away. He looked around the room, as if considering whether there might be another way round.

“I’m not letting you leave this room,” Bucky said, “until Sam gets back.”

Walker clenched his jaw in frustration. Bucky could see a vein pulsing in his forehead. Walker wasn’t going to give up so easily. There was going to be more. Zemo had abandoned his efforts to escape his handcuffs and was watching them intently. 

Then Walker smiled, chuckled, and shook his head in amusement, as if the situation was funny.

“You know something, Barnes?” Walker’s tone was now casual, almost friendly. It made alarm bells ring in Bucky’s head. Walker exuded an unsettling level of confidence and ease.

Bucky saw Lemar tense, bracing himself as if he knew something unpleasant was about to happen.

“I didn’t get it, at first, when you were pardoned,” Walker said. 

Bucky attempted to hide his confusion at the sudden change in subject. He’d expected to weather more verbal threats about Sam’s safety. This was unexpected and threw him off.

Walker resumed his pacing. Slower now, in smaller circles, as he spoke. 

“When it came out, all those years ago, that Bucky Barnes was the Winter Soldier, it seemed like one of the greatest betrayals in American military history.” Walker’s voice still kept its friendly tone, a complete contrast to the words he was speaking. 

Bucky experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach. He forced himself to remain still, to give no sign that Walker’s words were landing. He would not give Walker the satisfaction or the victory of getting inside his head. 

“I assumed they pardoned you because of who you were. Captain America’s brother.” Walker almost spat the last three words. “But then I learned more. I read all that vile and violent stuff that happened to you. All the things that turned you into Hydra’s thrall.”

There was a blurriness encroaching on Bucky’s vision. It was as if the whole world was slowly phasing out of existence, leaving only him and Walker, and the bile that was pouring out of Walker’s mouth. He tightened his hold on the doorway, as if latching on to something solid would stop the world from disintegrating round him. The wood splintered under his metal fingers.

What had Walker read? Bucky’s heart pounded in his chest. 

God only knew how he remained standing. Somehow, Bucky remained immovable, centred in the doorway. Not giving Walker what he wanted. Not showing any outward sign that his words were impacting him, even though inside his head everything was spiralling, swooping and buzzing.

“I bet you didn’t know, did you Barnes?” Walker continued, after a slight pause to see if his words were impacting Bucky. Externally, Bucky tried to seem calm, but inside he was in turmoil. “You didn’t know that as Captain America I’ve had access to your therapy files.”

Walker stopped pacing and looked Bucky right in the eyes. 

He was lying. He had to be. 

Christina would have said something. The last time they’d met, Bucky had moaned about Walker to Christina. 

He’s an arsehole

Christina wouldn’t have let this happen. 

Bucky shook his head. He heard Lemar’s voice, sounding as if it were very far away, saying ‘John’ in an admonishing tone. 

“You think I’m lying?” Walker asked. He stepped even closer, his eyes still fixed on Bucky’s and gauging his reaction. 

Bucky couldn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if he tried to speak, that his voice would even work.

Walker’s tone may have been friendly, but his words were nothing but cruel.

“Been a bit of a rough few months for you, hasn’t it?” Walker said, his voice sounding sympathetic, understanding. Bucky locked his eyes onto Walker’s, refusing to look away. Refusing to blink. Refusing to give Walker the satisfaction of knowing his words were hitting home. All the while his heart thundered in his chest, and he felt so dizzy and light headed he thought that if he let go of the door frame that he might just float away. Or collapse to the floor in a heap with his legs turned to jelly.

 “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Walker asked. “The suicide attempt. The medication. The time you trashed your apartment.”

The words hit Bucky like a mallet. 

Walker had seen his therapy notes. He wasn’t bluffing. 

Bucky’s panic turned into anger, intensified by the feeling of betrayal.

Christina hadn’t told him.

He was aware that Christina wrote summaries of their sessions. She said she didn’t include every detail and she always agreed to leave things out if he asked. But he read none of them even though she said he could. She always offered to let him read them through, but he always refused. He was aware that every word was meticulously reviewed and scrutinised by some committee. People like the man with the briefcase in the black suit at the hospital. If he read the summaries himself it would make it seem more real; reading the exact words being analysed and dissected by so many others. If he saw what they would read he thought it would be enough to silence him forever.

Therefore he had never once read any of Christina’s summaries of their therapy sessions.

Thinking about what these people knew about him felt intrusive. It felt humiliating.

And Walker was one of those people. Maybe Lemar as well. Who else?

Oh God.

Oh God. What if Christina had written about Sam? About Bucky’s feelings for him. She always claimed she was keeping those things to herself, but what if she couldn’t be trusted? Did Walker know about the time he’d kissed Sam? 

Oh God. What about everything he told Christina about Rumlow? About General Markarov? All those times he’d allowed himself to be taken advantage of - no, he corrected himself, all those times they’d taken advantage of him. Abused him. Raped him. What about the scientists, like Nagel? What if Walker knew about all that too? 

No, Bucky told himself. Christina had promised not to include those things in her summaries. He had to trust that she’d been telling the truth. 

He gripped the doorframe even tighter, as if it alone was anchoring him to the ground. Keeping him solid. Steadfast. Grounding him, even as it continued to break beneath his fingers.

It didn’t matter what Walker said. He would not move.

Walker had tried to move him by making him feel guilty about Sam.

He’d tried to unsettle him by sharing his knowledge about Bucky’s therapy.

What else would Walker try?

“It’s odd,” Walker said, “the way you sometimes talk about Hydra, in therapy. It’s like you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome or something.”

That meant nothing to Bucky. And he could see that Walker could tell that these words had missed their mark. 

Walker sighed impatiently, his eyes flickering again behind Bucky towards the hallway. It had been over thirty minutes. Sam had to come back and end this impasse. Surely Sam was nearly finished and would return soon.

Unless it had gone wrong. Just because Bucky hadn’t heard any fighting didn’t mean that there had been none. They could have got the jump on Sam even as he entered the room. Maybe the funeral was a lie. A trap. It’s possible that they ambushed him, incapacitated him without a sound, and kidnapped him to use as a bargaining chip, as a hostage.

Maybe Zemo had turned on them, lied to them about the funeral, led them into a trap so that he could avoid recapture. They’d been fools to put any kind of trust in Zemo after everything he’d done. 

The Flag Smashers could have left ages ago with Sam as their prisoner, and could be miles away by now. 

Sam could even be dead.

He tried not to let these thoughts take root. Sam was competent. Capable. He knew what he was doing. For months, he had been carrying out perilous missions without Bucky’s help. Years even. He’d worked with Steve, fighting side by side with him. He’d survived far worse than a handful of super-soldiers. Sam didn’t need Bucky to mollycoddle over him like he was weak and in need of protection. 

Bucky could see Walker’s eyes take in Bucky’s stance. Could see Walker realise his verbal attacks weren’t landing in the way he’d hoped. It seemed like Walker was about to give up. 

Walker took a step back, expressing his disappointment with a shake of his head.

“It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it, Barnes?” Walker said, his words now cold and full of scorn, all false pretence at friendliness now gone. He looked Bucky up and down. “To get your way. All that serum running through your veins.”

It was the envy in Walker’s tone that caught Bucky’s attention. Like the serum was something to be desired. Like it was something Walker wanted. 

Bucky’s mind was filled with a rush of memories, images, and feelings. The POW munitions factory at Krausberg, where he had been injected with the serum, appeared vividly in Bucky’s mind. The weeks of torture he’d been subject to due to Zola’s insatiable curiosity about the limits of the serum.

And Siberia when the whole process was completed.

Fennhoff. Lukin. Grigorij. 

Names and faces rose into his mind, as if summoned by Walker’s words. 

All they had put him through to turn him into their super-soldier.

Walker spoke of it in a way that made it seem desirable. Something to want. 

How dare he? 

Those words hit in a way the others hadn’t. Overwhelmed by an intense, uncontrollable anger, Bucky impulsively lunged at Walker, grabbed him by his shoulders and forcefully pushed him up against a wall.

He had enough presence of mind not to exert too much force. Not to crush Walker’s head against the wall with enough power to crack his skull open. Not to squeeze his shoulders so hard that he would break his bones. Although, he might have some bruising later.  

He heard Lemar shout. In the periphery of his vision he could see Lemar raising his gun and aiming it at him. Bucky didn’t care. Lemar was on his left side, if he shot Bucky could deflect the bullet with his metal arm, even at such close quarters. But Bucky was willing to bet Lemar wouldn’t shoot. Too much risk of missing him and shooting Walker. 

Walker looked petrified. Bucky had to quell the rising feeling of satisfaction at the look of Walker’s face, pale and frozen in fear, as he realised he was overpowered. Vulnerable. Walker had prodded the bear, and now the bear had turned and Walker was realising the enormity of his mistake.

Walker was a normal human. Bucky was not.

A super-soldier could do terrible things to a human. 

Bucky had done terrible things to people. 

He slackened his grip on Walker’s shoulders at the thought, but didn’t let go. Just enough to let Walker know he was still overpowered, but not in fear for his life. He’d seen too many fearful faces.

His face was so close to Walker’s now. Even closer than earlier, when Walker had been the one to feel powerful. So close he could see the beads of sweat on Walker’s brow, the small wrinkles around his eyes.  

“I never asked for the serum,” Bucky heard himself say. But it didn’t sound like him. The words came out in a throaty growl.

“They forced it on me. Violently. Against my will.” He tightened his grip on Walker’s shoulders without realising it, causing the other man to shout out in pain.

“Barnes!” he heard Lemar shout again, and he let go of Walker and stepped back. Walker crumpled in on himself momentarily, before recovering. He reached for his gun, holstered at his hip, but Bucky could see Walker’s hands were shaking.

“You bastard,” Bucky said.

Bucky felt… ashamed. There was no other word for it. He’d lost control of himself and lashed out. For all that he hated Walker, and all the horrible words Walker had just thrown at him, he felt no pleasure in Walker’s fear. Walker had been cruel, yes, but Bucky had been cruel right back, and Bucky was the one who held all the power.

He stood over Walker, as Walker fumbled with his gun. However, Bucky refused to let the situation get worse. This needed to end now. Walker flinched as Bucky disarmed him and threw his gun to the side, out of reach. Walker expected Bucky to hurt him. Kill him even. 

No more violence. 

Bucky needed to leave. He needed to get away before he did something he would really end up regretting. The memories and images that Walker had prompted were still flashing through his mind. He had all those feelings of anger, humiliation, shame, horror and failure rushing through him. 

He hoped he’d given Sam enough time to do what he needed to do. And he knew that by leaving now and allowing Walker and Lemar free rein he was failing Sam. Failing Sam, once again. He seemed to do nothing else.

Failed everyone. It’s all you ever do.

Sam who’d trusted him. 

But he couldn’t stay a moment longer. He turned on his heel and left them. 

He didn’t know where he was going as he rushed through one narrow cobbled street after another, passing a myriad of bright, colourful houses and taking turns at random with no sense of purpose or direction. His mind all the way replaying Walker’s words repeatedly, hoping that he’d got it all wrong, that he was mis-remembering and that Walker hadn’t said the things he’d said. 

None of this meant he couldn’t trust Christina, he told himself. There was nothing that showed that Christina had lied to him about what she shared in her summaries of their sessions. He asked her not to report back about the time he’d kissed Sam and maybe she hadn’t.

The time you trashed your apartment

That was what Walker said. That must be referring to the emotionally vulnerable incident. If Walker had wanted to really impact Bucky he would have mentioned Sam and his involvement. But he hadn’t. And maybe that was because he didn’t know about it. 

Bucky realised suddenly that he did not know where he was, nor how long it had been since he’d left Walker and Lemar. He pivoted on the spot, taking in his surroundings.

He was by the river. River Daugava he presumed, recalling Zemo’s words from that morning, when he’d been playing at being their tour guide. He was on a small footpath, lined on one side by trees which blocked his view of the city. He stepped off the path towards the river, and could see more of the city of Riga on the other side. 

Zemo was right, he thought. The city was incredibly beautiful. He stared out over the water and wished he could just stay here forever. He didn’t want to go back and face the fallout from his actions. Didn’t want to see Sam’s disappointment and betrayal - yet again.

The only sound breaking the silence was the faint birdsong in the background. He couldn’t even hear any traffic. No one was around. He was completely alone. 

He’d have to go back and face Sam. Have to explain to Sam why he’d run off and abandoned him to Walker and Lemar. Bucky suspected Zemo would have used the chaos to escape. And he was completely responsible for it all. It would be completely reasonable for Sam to be furious about this. 

Why was he such a mess?

Why couldn’t he do anything right?

One thing after another, after another…

Hydra’s Thrall

Is that what people thought of him? When they thought of Bucky Barnes, ex-Winter Soldier, ex-Hydra assassin - Hydra’s thrall?

A mindless slave, completely subjugated and controlled.

Was that so far from the truth? Maybe not. But it was a horrible description.

And, in an odd way, it was far too absolving.

 

All that vile and violent stuff that happened to you

The files Christina had been given about him before he'd even started therapy with her, the files that depicted those horrible early years in Siberia. Fennhoff's notes. Had Walker seen those too? He didn't even know where they came from, let alone who might have had access to them. He never even read them so he didn't even know exactly what they contained, so he had no real idea what information was there to be known about him. Why had he always been so passive? Never really questioning things? Refusing to read things. Preferring to blindly stick his head in the sand and remaining ignorant of what people knew about him.

Bucky knelt down by the river and splashed some water onto his face as more thoughts raced through his mind, increasing his anxiety.

What if Walker told Sam the things he’d told Bucky? Zemo had been there too, what if Zemo told Sam? 

The suicide attempt Walker had said. That was the day Bucky met Yori, and shouted at Sam down the phone. He’d never wanted Sam to know about that. 

He took some deep breaths and concentrated on the feeling of the water flowing through his fingertips.

And then he brought out his phone. It had been forty minutes since he’d left the others. Only forty minutes. It felt like hours had passed.

He scrolled to Christina’s name and pressed the call button.

He didn’t give her a chance to speak first. The moment he heard she was connected he dove right in.

“Did you know Walker has read my therapy notes?”

He couldn’t prevent the question from sounding like an accusation.

“What?” She sounded confused. 

Bucky repeated the question. Louder this time. And slower.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Bucky jumped up to his feet and paced, forwards and backwards along the riverbank.

“Yes, I’m sure! He’s just told me things that he couldn’t possibly have known otherwise!”

His loud voice startled some swans and other waterfowl, and he watched as a small group of birds panic-swam away from him, chattering and their wings flapping. 

“Oh no,” she replied. She sounded genuine. Shocked. “No. No… That’s not appropriate. That’s not appropriate at all. I’ll find out more, I’ll talk to someone. Are you…”

Bucky assumed she was going to ask Are you alright? The last thing he wanted was to spend an hour on the phone talking about his feelings. He interrupted her.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “I don’t even care. Everyone already knows pretty much everything about me. What does it matter what one more person knows?”

He hung up the phone and then, before he could stop himself, he hurled it as far away from him as possible. 

He regretted that immediately as he watched his phone break the surface of the water and vanish from view, little ripples spreading out from where it sank. 

“Oh fuck,” he muttered. 

This was the third phone he’d destroyed. 

He stared at the spot where he’d last seen his phone where it had vanished into the water and swore again, under his breath. 

He sat down and pulled off his boots. Time for a swim.

 

Chapter 39: Another Gift from Hydra

Another Gift From Hydra

 

Bucky silently entered Zemo’s house and stood in the entryway, listening carefully.

Without a phone or means to contact Sam, he’d decided that returning to Zemo’s house was the next best course of action.

He heard their voices as soon as he opened the front door. He left it open behind him and padded softly forward on bare feet. He didn’t want to advertise his presence without knowing exactly who was in there, and getting an idea of what happened in his absence. 

Zemo and Sam were the only ones there. No-one else. No Walker or Lemar. No Karli. No Wakandans. 

Just Zemo and Sam, chatting together as they waited for Bucky to return. 

Bucky felt relief wash over him. Sam was okay. 

Of course Sam was okay. Sam had known exactly what he was doing when he went to meet with Karli. Bucky had never doubted it for a second. It was just Walker, knowing how to push his buttons, who got him all worked up about Sam’s safety. 

He rested against the wall, eyes closed, attempting to regain control of his frayed nerves. He hadn’t realised how tightly strung and on edge he was until he heard Sam’s voice. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He remained out of sight of Sam and Zemo, who were both completely oblivious to the fact that someone had entered the house. 

“If you had the opportunity,” he heard Zemo ask Sam, “would you take the serum?”

“No.” Sam’s response was immediate, clear and certain.

Some powerful emotion built up from deep inside Bucky at Sam’s response. A warmth surging through his entire body, so powerful and overwhelming that it made him feel dizzy and slightly lightheaded.

God, Sam he thought. As if he needed no more reasons to fall completely head over heels for that man, Sam just kept giving him more and more. 

No pause. No room for doubt. No hedging… no ‘yeah, that would be great but…’

Just a clear and precise no. 

He sagged against the wall.

That wonderful, wonderful man. 

It made him feel even worse about everything he’d put Sam through. He deserved so much better. 

“No hesitation.” Zemo sounded approving. 

So different from Walker, who’d spoken of the serum with envy and want. Walker, tempted by the idea of superhuman strength and abilities, wouldn’t hesitate to accept the serum. But Sam, he’d seen the reality that lay behind it. He’d seen the true face of the serum,  through Isaiah Bradley, through Bucky and Steve, to not even fantasise for a single second about what it would be like to be a super-soldier.

Zemo was still talking. Bucky pulled himself together so he could pay attention.

“Whatever you saw in Karli, it’s not there anymore,” Zemo said. “All she sees is her goal. The serum has amplified her rage, her anger, her feelings of injustice, and she won’t stop. Her will is set, and nothing but death can break it.”

So Zemo was still trying to convince Sam that there was only one way to resolve this. Karli was still alive then, and she’d got away from Walker and Lemar. Bucky wondered how Sam’s conversation with her had gone, and how badly Bucky’s actions earlier had screwed everything up.

“Super soldiers cannot be allowed to exist,” Zemo said.

A dream that needs to die , Bucky thought, struck once again by the similarities in his and Zemo’s thought process. The thought was unwelcome.

“If that’s how you feel,” Sam said, “what about Bucky?”

Okay, that’s enough, Bucky thought. He had no desire to stand here and listen to Sam and Zemo talk about him. He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, only to check the house and gauge the atmosphere. Everything seemed to be fine. Now was the time to go in there and speak to Sam.

He slammed the front door closed, signalling to Sam and Zemo that they were no longer alone, gathered his courage, and joined them. 

They both fell silent as he entered the spacious room. The ‘withdrawing room’ Zemo had called it. So pretentious. 

“Buck…” Sam sounded cautious, wary, alarmed. Bucky’s eye flickered over to take in his shocked gaze and it suddenly occurred to him what he must look like.

His clothes were still wet from his frantic and insane search for his phone in the river. His feet were bare, his soaking wet socks and boots clutched in his arms and his hair, growing ever longer and badly in need of a trim, a soggy tangled mess. 

He must look like a mad man. Maybe he should have taken a moment to sort himself out before abruptly entering. The look on Sam’s face, uneasy and concerned, was unsettling. Everything he’d planned to say vanished from his mind.

Ignoring Sam, he headed straight for the counter where Zemo had left a decanter of alcohol and poured himself a drink. He placed his boots and wet socks on the floor and kicked them out of sight behind the counter.

Sam walked over to stand next to him and said his name again, and asked him where he’d been. Bucky dug his phone out of his soaking wet pocket and tossed it onto the counter.

“I need a new phone,” he said, and then drained his glass.

Sam picked up his phone and inspected it. 

“Might be able to salvage the SIM card,” Sam said dubiously as he held up the phone and watched the water drain out of it. “Or maybe not.”

“I threw it in the river.” Bucky filled up the glass again. 

Sam put down the phone, took Bucky’s glass from his hand, and firmly placed it on the counter. Bucky avoided his eyes. 

Sam accurately sensed the root of Bucky’s restless behaviour and assured him, “Bucky, I’m not upset with you for running off.” Sam was trying to be reassuring, to make Bucky feel better, but it didn’t help. Sam’s understanding and kindness just made Bucky feel even worse for letting him down - if feeling worse was even possible. He didn’t feel like he deserved it. He wanted Sam to be angry with him. To shout at him. To vent all those feelings of frustration that he knew Sam must have, as he had done in Madripoor. Bucky deserved it. 

“Zemo told me what happened,” Sam explained. Bucky felt a surge of anger towards Zemo. Of course Zemo told him, probably couldn’t resist. He bet Zemo took great pleasure out of telling Sam everything Walker had said. Bucky stared solidly at the now half-full decanter, refusing to meet Sam’s eyes. 

“He told me what Walker said to you,” Sam continued, “and I don’t blame you for walking away.”

This confirmed all of Bucky’s worries and fears. Bucky closed his eyes for a second and somehow managed to drag up some resolve. 

“Did he?” Bucky affected a confused tone, light and sarcastic but also challenging, his eyes wide as if he had no idea what Sam was talking about.

“Did Walker say something?” Bucky asked. “What did he say?”

Sam looked even more wary.

“Don’t be like this, Buck,” he requested quietly. 

“Like what?” Bucky asked, playing dumb even though he knew what Sam was talking about. He was being belligerent. 

He felt a pang. He’d not meant to act this way. On the entire walk back to Zemo’s house, he’d planned to apologise properly to Sam. To give Sam a genuine and heartfelt apology, but instead he was acting as though Sam was the one who had wronged him, and not the other way round.

He was being confrontational and defensive. And he felt awful because Sam deserved better.

Why did he keep on doing this? Hurting Sam again and again and again?

Sam didn’t answer, but his face spoke volumes. Disappointment. Worry. Caution. 

It just made Bucky feel worse.

Bucky stole a glance at Zemo, who was lounging on one of the sofas. Enjoying the show probably. He wished Zemo wasn’t here, so that he and Sam could talk properly.

“Hydra’s thrall?” Bucky exclaimed, now abandoning all pretence that he didn’t know what Sam was talking about. “Is that what people think of me?” That had been on his mind constantly since he left Walker. Walker’s words, along with everything else that had happened, replayed incessantly in his mind.

“I don’t think this is the time,” Sam said, his own eyes flickering towards Zemo, showing that he too wished that he and Bucky were alone to have this conversation.

“No, no,” Bucky said. “You brought this up. You wanted to talk about it. So let’s talk about it.” He reached for the glass, but Sam pulled it away.

“And what the fuck is Stockholm Syndrome, anyway?” Bucky asked, remembering something else Walker said. Walker had thrown it at him to unsettle him, but it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t even look it up on his phone now. 

“Bucky, I think you need to take a moment to cool down.” Sam’s voice was level, calm, and reasonable. “You’re soaking wet and muddy. Maybe have a shower. Sort yourself out a bit.”

“I’m cool enough,” Bucky retorted. “I just went for a swim in the river. Why don’t you want to answer my questions?”

He hated the way Sam was looking at him, the way Sam was talking to him. Like he needed to be treated carefully, like he was a bomb about to go off. He knew that his attitude was just making it worse, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response to being held captive,” Zemo said loudly and quickly. “When people form emotional bonds, and attachment, even love, towards their captor or perpetrator of abuse. Feeling bound to them in some way.”

Suddenly, the Earth stopped turning. Or at least it felt like that, as Zemo’s words took meaning in Bucky’s brain. 

Love towards their captor?

Is that what Walker was suggesting?

It’s odd the way you sometimes talk about Hydra, in therapy. It’s like you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome or something.

He recalled the time he spoke to Christina about nostalgia. They’d spoken about how difficult it was sometimes, being free and the struggle of making choices. How sometimes he longed for a simpler time, when choices were made for him.

She would have written about that conversation in her therapy notes. Walker would have read about that. 

“No!” Sam turned towards Zemo, looking furious. “Don’t say anything!” he barked at Zemo. “Not one more word.”

He then turned back to Bucky. “It’s not a real thing, Bucky. It’s pseudo psychology. A myth developed in the 70s in order to discredit abuse victims. It’s fake.”

Real or not, Bucky thought, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Walker had read enough to think that Bucky had developed an attachment towards Hydra. 

Emotional bonds, attachment, even love

Feeling bound to them in some way

He thought about what he’d said to Rumlow.

It hurts when I think of something bad happening to you

Maybe it was true.

He’d always thought that was the programming - something still there within him that the Wakandans missed, emotionally tying him to his former handlers. Maybe there was more to it than that. 

He took in a deep shaky breath and wished he had a cigarette. He’d been trying to smoke less now that he was around Sam a lot. Sam hated smoking. But it wasn’t easy, especially at times like this, to go without.

“It might not be real in that sense,” Zemo said, ignoring Sam’s instructions to be quiet. “But it seems logical to me. When you’re treated badly and someone shows you kindness, of course you’d feel a closeness to them.”

This is mercy

Three words formed in his brain, dredged up from who knows where and when in his past.

Who’d said that?

I got the General to leave you without further punishment. This is mercy

Just comply and you won’t remember this, I promise. This will all go away

The dream he’d had months ago. General Markarov. The time he’d gone rogue and lashed out, violently attacking everyone around him. And the General…

I beat, fucked and zapped it out of you

There’d been a man who’d got the general to leave him alone. He screwed his eyes shut tight, trying to remember.

I swear to God Rostov, if you say the word protocol one more time I will shoot you

That was it. Rostov. Until now, the name meant nothing. But Zemo’s words stirred something new within him regarding this man. Something important. But he couldn’t grasp it.

“Get out!” Sam snapped at Zemo, pulling Bucky out of his thoughts. Bucky opened his eyes to see Zemo getting to his feet and walking over to join them, instead of leaving the room as instructed.

“You want me to leave?” Zemo asked. “What if I run off? Escape? Without one of you to keep an eye on me?” His tone was mocking.

Sam looked like he wanted to punch Zemo. His face was furious. If Bucky had been Zemo, he wouldn’t have dared speak another word because of the murderous look on Sam’s face. Zemo, always wanting the upper-hand, never missed the opportunity to have the last word. He sought to control and manipulate every conversation and situation for personal gain. And Zemo had more to say. More mines to set off. 

“Did you really try to kill yourself?” Zemo asked. Zemo’s words were so brazen that Bucky was momentarily stunned and unable to answer. His mouth dropped open as he stared at Zemo in horror, completely speechless. 

Sam grabbed Zemo by the arm and pulled him away. “That’s enough!” he shouted. Bucky, meanwhile, remained frozen at the counter, too dumbstruck by Zemo’s audacity to say anything.

And even worse, he’d said it in front of Sam. Any hope that perhaps Zemo wouldn’t repeat Walker’s statement about the ‘suicide attempt’ to Sam was gone.

“Is it?” Zemo asked, attempting to wrench his arm from Sam’s grasp as Sam marched him towards the door to throw him out. “I don’t think so. I think it’s a needed question, actually. Don’t you think we need to know if one of us is compromised in any way? Anything that might affect the success of the mission… any fragility or weakness.”

God, Zemo knew how to make words hurt. And he was right, wasn’t he? Sam had trusted Bucky to monitor Zemo and prevent Walker and Lemar from butting in. And Bucky had failed, because he was mentally compromised. Because Walker had got inside his head and attacked all his weak spots, just like Zemo knew how to and had been doing all this time. Just as Zemo was doing right now at this very moment as Sam dragged him towards the door, even now trying to cause problems between them, trying to turn a situation to his advantage. 

God, he’d been so stupid to be taken in by Zemo. He recalled every interaction - every time Zemo had tried to get between him and Sam, driving a wedge between them. Telling him to hide things from Sam. Putting him in that situation with Selby and throwing him into turmoil. 

Every time Zemo had shown him kindness, empathy, solidarity - it had all been manipulation. And Bucky should have seen it. He should have known. Zemo didn’t care about him. He was just pulling the strings and Bucky had let him.

He felt angry and mutinous and even more ashamed of himself.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that,” Bucky heard himself say, loudly and furiously. He let out a short bark of a laugh. A bitter, humourless laugh full of contempt. “Because I can’t kill myself, alright? Another ‘gift’ from Hydra!”

He regretted the words immediately, knowing the implication wrapped within them. He was losing control of himself, saying too much.

He heard Sam and Zemo’s steps falter. Sam abandoned Zemo and walked back over and laid a hand on Bucky’s arm. 

“We don’t need to talk about this,” Sam said. “Not here, not like this. Don’t feel that you need to say anything.”

Bucky mouthed wordlessly at him. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He felt humiliated. Sam knew about the suicide attempt. Walker knew. Zemo knew. And now this knowledge had been passed on to Sam. It could never be unsaid. Sam could never unlearn this information about him and it would always hang there in between them, never to go away. It was over. This ruined everything. 

It would be pointless to deny it, Bucky thought, and to even try would be to tell Sam even more about that day. About his fragile emotional state after he’d accidentally met Yori and found out about his son. About the conversation with Sam afterwards, that was just too much for him and pushed him over the edge - leaving him in a fraught and uncontrollable emotional turmoil which had ended with him causing as much damage to himself as he could.

Christina wasn’t convinced by his argument that he didn’t intend to kill himself. He couldn’t even convince himself of that. He would have no chance of convincing Sam, and he couldn’t even imagine how he could begin to explain what had happened that day.

After you rang me and I shouted at you, I was so overwhelmed and emotional that I attacked myself with a knife so badly that I ended up in hospital. And I was too ashamed to tell you about it.

He’d fuck that conversation up just as badly as he was this one. He’d probably manage it so badly that he’d end up blaming Sam for what happened.

He couldn’t say anything. He just felt a wretched sense of doom and despair that Sam now knew about this. Even if he didn’t know all the details now, it was inevitable he would find out the rest one day. It was bound to happen. This wasn’t something that could be ignored. The door was wide open now, and this horrific knowledge would always be there. They were going to have to talk about it one day. Sam would need to know what caused it, that the situation would not repeat itself. And Sam would feel guilty about it. He would feel responsible even though he’d done nothing wrong. It would affect everything, poisoning their every interaction, and they’d never be able to move past it.

It was all over before it had even begun, Bucky could feel it. Bucky could already tell that Sam was treating him differently. Had done so ever since Bucky had joined him and Zemo. Tiptoeing around him. Choosing his words carefully. Silencing Zemo. Sam hadn’t expressed any anger or frustration at him for abandoning him to Walker and running off, which Bucky was sure he would have done normally. Sam had been treading on eggshells around him throughout this entire conversation. 

A conversation that had been entirely about him. This was all because of him. Bucky had waltzed in here, bringing with him all this awkwardness, stress and drama, making everything about him, and he’d not even asked what had happened with Karli. He’d shown no interest whatsoever. Just selfishly made it all about him. He did not know what had led to Sam and Zemo being here together waiting for him, or where Walker and Lemar had got to. 

He swallowed.

“Let’s…” His voice cracked. He couldn’t even speak properly anymore. “Just change the subject, please.”

There’d been enough focus on him. They were on a mission and he’d done enough already to damage it.

Sam looked like he wanted to say more, but Zemo’s presence constrained him. Bucky was now grateful that Zemo was still here, as it held Sam back from focusing even further on Bucky. To Bucky’s relief, Sam nodded.

Bucky reached for the glass again, and Sam didn’t move it away this time. Bucky drained it for the second time.

“What happened with Karli?” Bucky asked after placing his empty glass back down. He affected an air of ease, nonchalance, confidence. As if the entire conversation already between them hadn’t happened. He silently pleaded with Sam to just go along with it. 

“I was talking to her. She listened to me. I thought I was making progress,” Sam explained. He seemed less uneasy now that the conversation had shifted to firmer ground. “She was listening to me, and sharing her experiences, her motivations. But then…” he trailed off. 

“Then Walker and Lemar came in and ruined everything,” Bucky finished for him. 

Sam smiled sadly. “She thought I was just playing for time. I was connecting with her, and it all fell apart.”

Bucky felt a wave of guilt and regret. That was his fault, because he’d let Walker get into his head and affect him.  

“Then what happened?” he asked. 

“She got away,” Sam said. “Walker shot her.”

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up. “He shot her!?” 

Walker clearly meant business. Bucky remembered Walker’s anxious, manic pacing round and round while waiting for Sam. Mumbling to himself, Lemar’s concerned look. Walker was desperate to get this win, and he’d kill Karli and all the others to get it.

“Not fatally,” Sam said. “And the serum’s gone. Zemo smashed it.”

Bucky whipped his head round towards Zemo, who was hovering by the door where Sam had left him. That was not something he’d expected to hear.

“You smashed it?” he asked. “All of it?”

Zemo nodded. “Karli dropped the vials while she was running away after Walker shot her. I destroyed them all.”

For a fleeting moment Bucky found himself doubting the honesty of Zemo’s claim. He wondered whether Zemo was lying about smashing the vials. Whether Zemo may have kept one for himself. He dismissed the thought. Zemo was a lot of things. He was clever, manipulative, sly, a consummate liar, untrustworthy - but there had always been one constant: Zemo’s disgust towards super-soldiers and his dedication to eradicating the serum. If Zemo said the serum was all gone, then Bucky had no reason to doubt him.

Bucky let out a sigh of relief. Finally, some good news. Progress. He wished he’d asked about it sooner, rather than allow the conversation to take the path that it had. They wasted all that time focused on him and his drama, when he should have just asked about it the moment he’d stepped into the room. This was good news, and instead of feeling positive, they were all tense and angry with one another.

“Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?” Bucky turned back to face Sam. “The serum’s dealt with. We succeeded.”

They could return Zemo to the Wakandans, have Walker and Lemar handle Karli and the others, and return to the States for a proper conversation. They’d be able to talk meaningfully without the urgency of the mission hanging over them, without Zemo overhearing every word and getting in the way.

There was a lot they needed to talk about. Bucky clenched his fingers into tight fists just thinking about it. Would they talk? Was he even capable of managing the kind of conversation that they needed, the kind of conversation that Sam deserved? Or would he just get defensive again and belligerent and ruin everything and lead to him and Sam spending another extended period of time not talking to one another?

If he failed, there’d never be another chance. Sam and he would go off on their separate ways and that would be it. Forever this time.

“One part,” Sam said. “We’ve succeeded on one part. There’s still Karli and the others.”

Oh yes, Bucky thought. How foolish of him to think that Sam would leave the Flag Smashers to Walker, especially now that Walker had shown his hand and shot Karli. He’d have no prospect of convincing Sam to leave it here. But he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that it would be better for Sam to stay out of it now. Bucky was certain that, one way or another, this was all going to end with Karli’s death, and he wanted to protect Sam from that.

Zemo opened his mouth and Sam raised a hand. “I don’t want to hear it!” Sam said. “I’m not listening to you anymore. I don’t want to hear another word come out of your mouth ever again! About anything. You’re done. This is over!”

The sight of Zemo’s horrified expression was satisfying.

“We’re handing you over to the first one who wants you - Walker or the Wakandans,” Sam finished.

Zemo’s face paled.

“I think you would still benefit from my help,” Zemo said. “The mission isn’t complete. There’s a lot that still…”

“Well, you’ll have to plead your case with the Dora Milaje,” Bucky interrupted, completely in agreement with Sam. “And if they’re willing to give you more time, then you’ll have to deal with Walker as well.”

He took further satisfaction in seeing Zemo’s face pale even more. 

“That man is unhinged,” Zemo said, referring to Walker, a description Bucky could get behind. Probably the one thing all three of them would wholeheartedly agree with.

And then the front door crashed open. And pandemonium ensued.

Notes:

I did a bit of reading about Stockholm syndrome and found out quite a lot of interesting information about it. Apparently it's not actually a recognised disorder. The term stems from a bank heist in Sweden in 1973 where the police really messed up and put the hostages at risk, and the hostages actually felt safer with the robber than the police. The disorder Stockholm Syndrome was therefore used to discredit the victims' criticism of the police and it seems to have been continually used to discredit victims of abusive crimes ever since. There's much more to it than my superficial explanation; I only did a bit of brief reading. It's still the subject of debate to this day and contested.

Chapter 40: Moving Forward in Circles

Moving Forward in Circles

 

At first, it was just Walker and Lemar. They stormed into the building as if engaged in some kind of military operation, Walker taking the lead. 

“You’re handing him over to us now!” Walker gestured angrily at Zemo, who slunk backwards, moving himself behind Sam.

“You’ll get no arguments from us there,” Sam replied shortly. “Take him.”

Bucky raised his head and caught Zemo’s eyes which were gazing imploringly at him. Bucky shook his head. He was done with Zemo’s games and manipulations. Zemo wasn’t needed anymore, and it was time for him to go.

“But he’s been a damn sight more useful than you have.” Sam hurled these words at Walker like a weapon, so full of vitriol that it made Bucky blink in surprise. It seemed that as much as Sam loathed Zemo, he liked Walker even less. Bucky guessed that Walker shooting Karli had probably been the final straw for Sam.

Or perhaps, a small thought occurred to him, it wasn’t just what Walker had done to Karli that had turned Sam so against the other man. Maybe it was Walker’s cruel words to Bucky that had done it.

It was clear that Walker had expected more resistance from them about handing Zemo over and was disappointed by how easily Sam had agreed to handing Zemo over. He was pushing for a fight.

He stepped forward, infiltrating Sam’s space, and drew himself up to his full height. 

Sam just stepped back and shot him an incredulous look. “Are you serious?” he asked. “Picking a fight with Bucky right here?”

Walker’s eyes flickered over to Bucky, who remained where he was, staring coldly over at him. Walker blanched when his eyes met Bucky’s ice cold glare and took a step back away from Sam and raised his arms in a ‘calm down’ gesture. 

And then the Wakandans burst into the room as well. Three of them - Ayo, flanked by two other Dora Milaje that Bucky didn’t recognise. Ayo stepped into the room like a queen, authoritative and assertive, and informed the room that Zemo was going back with them.

And Walker took this as a challenge. He’d been spoiling for a fight all day, ever since he’d arrived in Latvia and wanted to confront Karli. Bucky watched as Walker and Ayo swapped terse, hostile words and marvelled at just how stupid Walker must be to be picking a fight with the Dora Milaje. 

It was almost funny actually, given that they all wanted the same thing. They all wanted Zemo to return to prison. And if anyone just took a moment to actually talk and listen , they’d soon realise that. But Walker felt threatened by Ayo and wanted to prove himself, and Ayo was frustrated with the delay in recovering Zemo and felt that Walker was another obstacle to her goal. 

And it wasn’t long before the verbal exchange escalated into a physical one.  

And Bucky… well, he’d meant to stay out of it, not get drawn into a confrontation. But there was Sam, trying to be the peacemaker and break the fighting up and putting himself in harm’s way, and Bucky couldn’t just stand back and ignore that. He dodged a vibranium spear as he stepped forward to try to reason with Ayo.

He didn’t intend to fight her. He just wanted to get her attention, speak to her. Remind her that they all wanted the same thing, and that allowing themselves to get provoked by Walker was not in any way helpful. He grabbed at the spear with his metal arm as he implored her to just listen , and he knew immediately he’d made a grave error. Her nostrils flared, her eyes hardened, and suddenly he realised that she was now seeing him as an enemy. And before he could do anything else, she leapt forward and the next thing he knew, his metal arm was on the ground, detached from his body and she swore at him. 

Everything else was forgotten as Bucky stared down in horror at his arm. He forgot about Zemo, about Sam and Walker, and the super-soldiers. He didn’t know the Wakandans could do that. 

Of course, he knew the arm could come off. He knew how to take the arm off. He just never did. As much as he hated what the metal arm represented, he hated having only one arm more. But he didn’t know the Wakandans could disarm him in such an efficient, quick and brutal manner. As if they couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t turn against them. As if Shuri had maybe had doubts in her ability to fix Bucky and he might turn into the Winter Soldier again and they needed a fail-safe just in case.

And in all honesty, could he really blame Ayo for leaping forward and disarming him? Given the situation, probably not. He’d not exactly been endearing himself to the Wakandans lately, and Ayo had been more than generous in giving him extra time with Zemo. But still… 

It still hurt.

The fight ended around him. Bucky wasn’t sure what was happening, and he barely cared anymore. He reached down for his arm and slowly reattached it. He felt sick. 

“Zemo!” he heard Sam shout, and then footsteps as Sam ran out of the room. And then he was alone. 

Bucky surveyed the devastation around him. Everything in the large room was completely destroyed. The furniture, the door, even the windows. The large, weight bearing pillars that adorned the room were also damaged, sliced by the shield, or perhaps the vibranium spears, and part of the ceiling was crumbling. The counter was also damaged, and there was Bucky’s glass from earlier completely smashed, but… the glass decanter was still intact, still half filled, despite the complete destruction of everything else in the room.

Bucky almost laughed at the utter madness of it all. 

Bucky could hear Sam’s footsteps as he raced around the house, presumably looking for Zemo. 

Bucky picked up the decanter, righted one of the sofas and threw himself heavily down on it, and waited for Sam to finish his search for Zemo. He knew Zemo would be gone this time. Zemo knew his time was up and he would have taken advantage of the chaos surrounding him to disappear. The mission wasn’t complete yet, after all. Zemo would not be content to return to prison while Karli and the other super soldiers were still at large.

After a few minutes, Sam returned, breathing heavily. 

“Well, Zemo’s gone,” Sam said. “Pulled an El Chapo on us.”

Sam heaved a sigh and then threw himself down on the sofa next to Bucky. 

“God, what a mess.” Sam leaned his head back against the cushions and gazed blankly up at the ceiling. Bucky offered him the decanter.

Sam stared at it, then accepted it and took a massive swig before putting it down on the floor.

“Christ,” Sam said as he looked around the room, surveying the damage just as Bucky had done. “This is… insane. Absolutely insane.”

Bucky nodded.

“I don’t have the first idea how to fix this,” Sam said. He sounded bleak, overwhelmed. “We’ve got to find Zemo, sort Walker out - he’s clearly not fit for this. Get the Dora Milaje off our backs - they’re furious with you by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, and find Karli and the others who could be anywhere by now. God, I feel like we’re making no progress at all. We’re just going round in circles.”

“Just because you’re going round in circles doesn’t mean you’re not making progress,” Bucky said, thinking of Christina and all her ‘moving forward in circles’ talk. 

Sam looked over at him, his gaze so intense and focused that it made Bucky shift in his seat, feeling uncomfortable.

“And you?” Sam asked. “Are you okay? We haven’t had the chance to speak yet. Maybe we should.”

“No,” Bucky said quickly. Earlier, all he’d wanted was for him and Sam to be alone so they could talk properly, but now they were in this situation, he suddenly felt very afraid. 

“Fine.” Sam’s voice was terse as he stood up, and Bucky felt a pang of regret as he knew that, once again, he was letting Sam down, disappointing him.

“I’m going to call Torres.” Sam was really speaking to himself rather than Bucky. “Maybe Sharon will help.” 

He moved away from the sofa and Bucky suddenly realised the importance of this moment. If he let Sam walk away now, it would all be over. There’d never be another chance. He’d let Sam down far too often for Sam to allow another opportunity for them to talk properly. 

“Wait!” he grabbed Sam’s arm, preventing him from walking further away and stared up at him.

“I…” He started speaking without any thought about what he would say. He wracked his brain, trying to remember his thoughts from earlier, when he’d been trying to prepare what to say to Sam. Trying to work out how to apologise to him, genuinely. 

Sam looked back at him, waiting patiently, and all Bucky could think about was how little he deserved Sam. After all this chaos, with all this stress and drama and the mission falling apart, Sam had thought to ask Bucky how he was. After everything Bucky had put him through. This had all been his fault.

“I owe you an apology,” he said. 

Sam shook his head, let out a small laugh.

“No you don’t,” he said, to Bucky’s shock. Sam pulled his arm free from Bucky’s hand and crossed his arms across his chest. Even though he’d laughed, he didn’t look happy. But he didn’t look angry either. It was confusing.

“You owe me several,” Sam elucidated. “So many that I can’t even count them.”

Bucky chewed his bottom lip and nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. He sank back, feeling utterly wretched and not knowing where to begin. There was just so much. His mind played out the events of the last two weeks. Hiding his intentions from Sam about involving Zemo on the mission. Not sharing their plans with Sam, keeping secrets. His fury at Sam at the party in Madripoor. That was the tip of the iceberg. All those times he’d sided with Zemo over Sam… it made him feel sick to think about.

How on earth could he have ever thought any of that was justified? 

Sam remained standing over him, looking stern and expectant.

Bucky took a deep breath and willed himself to be able to do this without breaking down, falling apart, or losing his head completely. This would hardly come across as a genuine and heartfelt apology if he just ended up losing his temper and shouting at Sam like he’d done in Madripoor.

“You were right,” Bucky said. “When you said that Zemo would get inside my head. I should have listened to you. He’s done nothing but manipulate me the entire time and I didn’t see it. And I’ve been horrible to you. I know I have, and I’m so angry with myself about it, because you don’t deserve it and yet you’ve put up with me all this time.”

“You’ve lied to me,” Sam said. 

Bucky hung his head, heart beating very, very fast. He stared down at his bare feet - idly wondering where his boots had ended up - and waited for Sam to continue.

“You’ve kept things from me,” Sam continued. There was no trace of accusation in his voice. He was just relaying the facts. No anger. No frustration. Just frankness and honesty. “You’ve treated me as though my opinion doesn’t matter, as if I’m incompetent. This was my job , Bucky, and you took it over and completely disregarded me.”

Bucky felt close to tears. He gripped the arm of the sofa tightly. 

“I know that I haven’t done everything right,” Sam said. “I lost my temper in Madripoor, and I accept that. But you weren’t doing well, and I was worried about you, and you just threw it back in my face.”

“I know,” Bucky said quickly. “I know I did. I’m sorry for all those things, I really am. I’ve messed everything up and I want to make it right. I do. I just don’t know how.” He forced his eyes to meet Sam’s, so that Sam would see how much he meant it. That these weren’t just words. That he wasn’t just saying what Sam wanted to hear.

“You need to trust me,” Sam said.

“I do…” Bucky started, but Sam cut across him.

“You need to stop questioning me, second guessing me, doing things behind my back. And when I say that you’re not well, that I’m worried about you, you need to accept that.”

It wasn’t pleasant hearing all this coming out of Sam’s mouth. But every word Sam was saying was justified and perfectly reasonable, so Bucky wasn’t going to raise any argument.

“I know,” Bucky said. “I will do all those things, Sam, I promise I will. And I’m sorry for running off earlier and ruining everything with Karli.”

Sam raised a hand. “I don’t need an apology about that. Walker was out of line. Way out of line. And I think that you leaving was probably the best thing you could have done, given the circumstances. What I do need, Bucky, is to know that you will listen to me. And I need you to be honest with me when I ask you if you’re okay and if you’re up to this.”

Bucky nodded. “I will, I promise.”

Sam looked sceptical. 

“Actions speak louder than words,” he said. 

Bucky understood immediately what Sam was saying. Sam needed to see that Bucky wasn’t just saying what Sam wanted to hear, wasn’t just agreeing to him, but that Bucky would actually act on it. And actually - Bucky’s heart leapt as he made this realisation - Sam was giving him a chance. A chance to prove himself. A chance to show Sam that he was taking this on board, and that things were going to be different from now on.

Sam was laying down his boundaries and expectations clearly, without any room for misinterpretation. If Bucky fucked up again, there wouldn’t be another chance. This was it.

“I won’t let you down,” Bucky said confidently. 

There was an expression of what looked like bemused scepticism on Sam’s face. But it wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t disappointment - a far worse emotion than anger, Bucky thought - and Bucky took heart from that. 

“You can start now, then,” Sam said, “by telling me honestly if you think you are capable of carrying on.”

Bucky wanted to respond instantly. To quickly and passionately tell Sam that he was fine and there was nothing to be worried about. However, he stopped himself in time, reminding himself that this wasn’t what Sam was looking for and wouldn’t be helpful. Sam needed to see that he was taking on board what he’d said, and properly considering it.

And was he really capable of carrying on after everything that had happened? For the first time, a part of him was actually willing to consider that maybe it would be better for him to leave. To return to therapy and explore everything that had happened over the last fortnight. Christina would have thoughts about it. She’d be able to work with him to make sure that things like that didn’t happen again. 

However, another part of himself rebelled against the idea. He wasn’t exactly proud of himself for running off earlier when Walker had verbally provoked him, but he felt he managed the situation as best as he could. He left. He didn’t resort to violence. He didn’t engage in any of his maladaptive coping strategies. He took himself somewhere where he could be alone and calmed down. He even called Christina (although mainly to shout at her about Walker). 

He probably could have managed the situation better. But he knew for certain that in the past he would have managed that situation a whole lot worse. And he didn’t feel like he had done in Madripoor, with a head full of chaos and buzzing and a desperate need to find something - anything - to calm it down. He felt calm. He felt in control of himself. He felt that he was able to carry on. 

“I am okay, Sam. I really am. It’s pretty obvious when I’m not okay. I’m hardly subtle.” He gave Sam a shaky smile, remembering when he’d completely lost it with Sam in Madripoor. And even before then, months ago, when he’d thrown Sam out of his apartment for calling him emotionally vulnerable. 

“But,” Bucky took a deep breath, “if you think I should go back, that I shouldn’t carry on, then I won’t argue.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. Bucky wanted to believe that Sam looked impressed by his honesty, but maybe it was scepticism again. “And in Madripoor?” Sam asked. “How were you doing then?”

Bucky winced at the reminder of just how badly he’d freaked out after the meeting with Selby. 

“I’ll admit that I wasn’t coping very well,” he said slowly. “At all. The whole situation with Selby and pretending to be the Winter Soldier - it affected me, pretty badly. And I didn’t manage it very well. And I lost my temper with you and I shouldn’t have done that. I know that you were just worried and looking out for me.”

He swallowed. It wasn’t easy saying these things out loud to Sam. It felt like he was showcasing just how crazy and messed up he was. 

“I haven’t done things like that for a very long time, though,” Bucky said quickly. “What you caught me doing - almost doing - in Madripoor, it’s been months since anything like that had happened. I haven’t… I’ve been…. I’m getting better. It may not seem like it, but I am.”

Sam heaved a heavy sigh and then sat back down next to Bucky.

“I know you are, Bucky,” Sam said. “In spite of the absolute chaos you brought into my life two weeks ago, I can see that you’ve made progress. And I know that it’s not easy.”

“Really?” Bucky caught Sam’s eye, hardly daring to believe Sam’s words, but it wasn’t like Sam to lie to make him feel better. Sam gave him hard truths. If Sam said he could see a difference in Bucky now from several months ago, then it must be true. This thought gave him confidence.

“I’m generally in more control of myself these days,” Bucky said. “Aside from what happened in Madripoor. I promise.”

“I believe you,” Sam said.

“Christina says that it’s not a straight line.” Bucky felt like he was probably over sharing now, and he was speaking incredibly quickly, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Recovery, I mean. She keeps calling it a journey, and it’s not linear. There’s steps forward and steps back.” He moved his forefinger round in a small circle. “Moving forward in circles,” he explained.  

Sam smiled. “That definitely sounds like therapist talk.”

There followed a long silence. Bucky was itching to speak more, desperate to ask Sam if he’d succeeded in showing Sam that he should be able to stay involved with the mission, but he knew that pushing Sam would not be the right move. Sam was deep in thought. 

“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Sam said finally. His tone suddenly became so grave and serious that it was startling. He also looked slightly anxious, contrite, and he couldn’t quite meet Bucky’s eyes, as if he felt guilty about something. Bucky felt a cold dread start to form in the pit of his stomach. Sam’s demeanour and tone suggested that something awful was about to come out, and Bucky didn’t have a clue what on Earth would affect Sam in this way.

“I didn’t mean to wait so long to tell you about this,” Sam continued, “but I have to get it out now, because the longer I wait the worse it’ll get. I know this might not be the best time, after everything that’s happened, but you need to hear this from me and not from someone else.”

Bucky was feeling even more alarmed by Sam’s tone. “God, Sam,” he said, “what is it?”

Sam took a moment to answer, as if playing out various conversations in his head before choosing on how best to progress this one. Every second felt like an eternity, but Bucky forced himself to sit patiently and wait. 

“Do you remember when I came to visit you in the Raft?” Sam finally asked. 

Bucky nodded, his mind racing to think about where this might be going. Visit might not be the right word. Sam managed to break in single-handedly into one of the most secure locations on the globe in order to gripe at Bucky about how self-destructive and stubborn he was being. 

“You got cross with me,” Bucky said, “because I wasn’t trying to defend myself. You thought I should tell them about what happened to me, what led to me becoming the Winter Soldier, and I refused to answer their questions.”

Sam nodded. 

“You were so hell-bent on remaining in prison and punishing yourself that it helped me come to an important decision that I had been agonising over ever since Steve died,” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment, and his upper body stiffened, bracing himself. And then it all came out in a rush.

“I had these files about you, had them for years, actually. And when I saw you in the Raft and it became clear to me that you weren’t going to say anything that would help you, I passed them over to the President. I thought they would help secure your release.”

Bucky stared at him. “Files? What files?” He had a feeling that he knew the answer to this question, but he hoped he was wrong. He hoped that Sam was talking about something else. Please let it be anything else. 

“Notes,” Sam said. “Photos, documents.” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “From the period after you fell from the train.”

“Oh….” It was more a breath than a word. The whole world froze in place as Bucky started to place the pieces together in his brain. 

“Oh God,” Bucky whispered. He’d been right. He knew exactly what files Sam was referring to. The files that Christina had been given about him detailing everything that had happened between 1945 and 1954. Fennhoff’s notes. The details about the torture. The psychological games. The White Room. The time he killed Grigorij. The rapes.

His stomach lurched. 

Oh no. 

That was how the President had got that information about him. That’s how Christina had all that information before he’d ever even spoken to her about it.  

“Back in 2014,” Sam said, “Steve’s friend Natasha gave them to me. She got them from a source in Kyiv.”

He continued to talk, but Bucky’s mind was a whirlwind, and he couldn’t listen to what Sam was saying.

Back in the hotel two weeks ago, after Bucky was arrested and then released, Bucky had told Sam about Zola being in Krausberg and Sam said he’d known about Zola. Bucky was confused about this at the time as no-one should have known about Zola, not even Steve had ever known about Zola being in Krausberg, but he’d brushed it aside, assuming that he’d made some mistake. But suddenly now, it made sense.

It made sense because… 

“Did you read them?” His voice was unnaturally high. It didn’t sound like him at all.   

To his horror, Sam looked slightly abashed, and this confirmed all his worst fears.

“Some,” Sam said. “They were in German, Russian, other languages. They were old, and a lot was illegible. I used my phone to translate some bits. It was…” Sam ran a hand over his hair. “Steve tasked me with finding you, and I knew nothing about you. I read everything I could. I needed to know as much as I could to understand what sort of state you’d be in. Your experiences. How it might have affected you. Whether you would be dangerous. What you might need. I had to know these things.”

All this time Bucky had been in absolute fear that Sam might one day find out just how screwed up in the head Bucky was, and yet Sam had known all this about him all along. All those details from the worst part of his life. Photographs, Sam said. Christina had never mentioned photographs. God only knew what awful state those photographs showed him in. He couldn’t bear to think about it. And Sam had passed on those files to others. 

Walker had probably seen them.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about it sooner,” Sam said. “And when I passed them on to the President, I believed it was the right thing to do. For you. For Steve. I still believe that. Although I know I should have asked you about it at the time…”

“No,” Bucky said suddenly. He felt ashamed. Embarrassed beyond measure. But he met Sam’s eyes and held his gaze because he needed Sam to see that he was sincere. He felt his face burning and knew Sam must be able to see how flushed his cheeks were, how bright and close to tears his eyes were, but he pushed past the humiliation and shame.

“You did the right thing,” Bucky said, forcing his shaky voice to remain stable. “All of it. It wasn’t your fault we weren’t talking all those months. It was mine. And if you had told me before then… I wouldn’t have understood. I would have been furious with you.” It would probably have had the same impact on him as the emotionally vulnerable conversation had. Bucky could well imagine how badly he would have taken this news back then. Hurling a phone through a window and smashing a wall with his metal arm would have been nothing compared to the destruction he might have wreaked had he found out this news back then. 

“It’s okay,” Bucky said. “Really it is. I’m not angry. In fact…” he hesitated, taking a moment to compose himself so that he would be able to carry on. “I’m grateful,” he said, “because you got me out of the Raft and you got me a second chance.”

Sam appeared positively shocked by Bucky’s words, and Bucky didn’t blame him. Sam had been so nervous and anxious about bringing this up that Bucky was certain that Sam had expected him to freak out, react badly. The last thing Sam would have expected was gratitude. Sam’s entire body, previously tense and on edge, suddenly relaxed. And he let out another sigh. This time it was a sigh of relief.

“I mean it,” Bucky said. “I…,” it was so hard to find the right words to say to Sam to show that he meant it when he said he wasn’t angry. “You advocated for me when no-one else would. Steve wasn’t there. There wasn’t anyone else. And I certainly wasn’t helping myself. Back then, I would have been content to remain in prison until the end of time, but now…” he shook his head. “I’m glad to be here. To have been given this chance, even though I often don’t feel deserving of it. And you gave me that. So… I want to thank you for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“Well, you’re welcome.” Sam sounded absolutely mystified, and he looked incredibly confused. “I’ve been so worried about telling you, you have no idea, and I’m so relieved.” He let out a small laugh.

Bucky couldn’t blame him for feeling this way. Experience had taught Sam that Bucky generally didn’t do very well with these kinds of revelations. And he was glad that he had successfully reassured Sam that he had done the right thing, and that there were no hard feelings about it.

It felt so good to have got all this out in the open at last, and he finally felt like he’d done something right. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he could tell, from Sam’s expression, that he felt similarly about it. And he was so relieved to be able to get through a conversation like this calmly, in control of his emotions. To not lash out defensively and make things worse. 

“It’s just...” Bucky said, and Sam tensed, as if he now anticipated the conversation taking a nasty turn.

“I wish you hadn’t seen them,” Bucky said. “I understand why you did, but…” He felt like he could cry thinking about the things Sam now knew about him. “What you must think of me…”

Sam raised a hand, turned on the sofa so that they were facing each other.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” he said firmly. It wasn’t harsh. There was no malice in his voice. He was calm, quiet, but firm. 

“I get that this is something you’re probably still working through in therapy,” Sam continued, “and that’s not for me to step into, but I want to make it clear that my views of you have nothing to do with anything that’s happened to you.”

How could it not affect Sam’s view of him? Bucky wondered. Bucky was tainted. A disgrace. Weak. He’d allowed the worst things to happen to him and then he’d just given up. 

He was well aware as he thought this that he was completely disregarding all the work he’d done with Christina about being critical of himself.

His feelings must have shown up on his face, for Sam continued. “We are not defined by our experiences,” he said. “It’s who we are now that matters.”

Bucky wanted to ask Sam, but who am I, then ? 

But he stopped himself. Sam had just made it clear that this was a discussion for therapy, and that wasn’t Sam’s role. He never wanted that to be Sam’s role. 

But if he wasn’t Bucky Barnes, ex-Hydra agent, ex-Winter Soldier, formerly Sergeant Barnes, Steve’s brother, then who was he?

As he thought of Steve, a horrible thought crossed Bucky’s mind, and he was petrified to ask this question, but he knew he must otherwise it would drive him crazy not knowing.

“Did Steve see them?” 

Bucky felt relief wash through him as Sam shook his head. He let out a deep breath.

“Thank God,” he murmured.

“When Natasha gave me the files,” Sam explained, “she left it to me to decide whether to show them to Steve.”

“That was big of her,” Bucky said. 

“I was annoyed with her at the time,” Sam said. “Sometimes I was beyond angry at her for abdicating the responsibility of this decision to me. I knew Steve would have been furious if he found out that I’d kept information from him, but…”

A pained expression showed on Sam’s face. “You didn’t see him then, Bucky. He was so worried about you. And he had so much guilt for what happened. He blamed himself for everything.”

Of course he did, Bucky thought. That was the person Steve had always been, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and feeling directly responsible when something went wrong. 

“If he saw what was in those files,” Sam continued, “I think it might just have pushed him over the edge completely. God only knows what he would have done. So I kept them from him. And even though I feel guilty as hell about it, I know I did the right thing.”

It would have killed Steve to know what was in those files. Bucky knew from his conversations with Steve in Wakanda how much guilt Steve felt over what had happened. No matter what Bucky said, he’d never been able to assuage Steve’s guilt, never been able to convince him that none of it had been his fault. It was almost ironic - Steve blamed himself for everything that had happened, while Bucky did the same thing, blaming himself for it all. 

“You did do the right thing.” Bucky hastened to reassure him. “For Steve. It would only have made him feel worse, and none of it was his fault.”

Suddenly feeling very daring, he reached out and took Sam’s hand in his. Sam didn’t pull his hand back, instead, he gave Bucky’s hand a small squeeze. Bucky felt his heartbeat pick up as he stared down at their joined hands.

“You were such a good friend to him,” Bucky said. “I often think about him. What it was like for him when he woke up in the 21st century. He was all alone, and surrounded by people who just wanted to use him. People who saw him only as Captain America, not Steve. But then he met you, and I’m glad… so glad he had you.”

Sam just nodded. He looked as if he was lost for words. Bucky suddenly worried that he’d said too much. Gone too far. Feeling embarrassed, he dropped Sam’s hand and cleared his throat.

“What’s the plan now, then?” he asked, breezily changing the subject.

“Well.” Sam looked slightly dazed, but quickly pulled himself together. “One thing at a time, I suppose. First thing, we find Karli. I almost got through to her and I’m certain I can do it again. And then we need to make sure we get Zemo back to prison. I’m sure we also haven’t heard the last of Walker either.”

“Of course we haven’t,” Bucky said. 

“You need a new phone,” Sam added. “We need to be able to contact each other in case we get separated, or if we split up and need to share information. And thank God Zemo got our stuff here from the plane, as I think we’re going to need to suit up.”

Bucky’s head shot up, and he stared at Sam as his brain worked out that Sam did actually say what Bucky heard him say. This meant that Sam was agreeing that Bucky could stay involved, Bucky could barely believe it. He’d managed this conversation. He’d convinced Sam that he was okay. He’d done something right, at last. 

They were okay. Moving forward in circles. But moving forward, nonetheless.

“And for the love of God, Buck,” Sam said, “put some shoes on."

Chapter 41: Hope

Hope

 

 

“Why do I feel like your heart isn’t really in this anymore?” Sam asked.

Bucky surveyed Sam uneasily, unsure of how to respond. 

Even though it was mid-morning, they had already spent hours searching Riga for Karli. Sam spent hours on the phone with Torres and Sharon last night trying to get as much information from them that they could share.

Turns out that Sharon Carter had access to satellites. Another reason to be wary of her. Even so, Sharon was unable to locate Karli and the others but was able to inform Sam that the Flag Smashers were most likely still in the city. Sharon had been able to track Walker and Lemar, who were currently doing the same thing Sam and Bucky were: trawling the city in search of the elusive super-soldiers. 

They’d left Zemo’s house at the crack of dawn and, using intel from Sharon and Torres, made their way through the city, knocking on doors and searching through resettlement camps, and questioning everyone they met.

They made no progress at all. Karli was well hidden, and no-one would answer their questions. Everyone was wary, worried, and most people avoided them, hurrying away as soon as they were spotted.

Time passed, and Sam became noticeably more frustrated and desperate with every passing hour. Bucky felt himself becoming increasingly uneasy about the whole situation. He had been trying to hide these feelings from Sam, but clearly Sam had noticed and now he was calling him out on it.

Bucky glanced around, making sure that no one was in earshot. Word had been spreading like wildfire on social media about their presence in Riga. Everywhere they went locals stared at them, whispering and holding up their phones and all the attention was disconcerting. Bucky was used to operating in the shadows, as an unknown entity, almost like a ghost. Since they’d arrived in Riga it had been as if there was a spotlight shining down on them everywhere they went. 

They were currently passing through a small park. There were a few people milling around, but no-one in earshot. Bucky gestured to Sam towards the fountain they’d just walked past. Bucky sat on the fountain wall, and dipped his right hand into the water.

Sam stood over him. “Don’t try to deny it,” he said. “You’ve barely said a word all morning. I thought you wanted to remain involved.”

“I do,” Bucky said quickly. “It’s just…”

He hesitated, unsure how to proceed, struggling to voice the thoughts that had been whirling through his mind all morning. 

“How do you see this ending?” he asked eventually. “We find Karli… then what?”

“I’ll talk to her again.” Sam sounded forthright. Confident. “I almost got through to her yesterday. I can do that again.”

Bucky let out a small puff of air. The last thing he wanted was to appear as if he doubted Sam’s abilities, which he didn’t, at all. It wasn’t doubt that fed his misgivings, it was concern. 

Walker had shot Karli yesterday. That’s what Sam and Zemo said. You don’t shoot someone unless you’re intending to kill them. Walker was prepared to kill Karli, and quite probably all the other Flag Smashers in order to succeed in his goal. And Walker was backed up by the United States government. 

And Zemo, for all his manipulations and self-serving motivations, had been right on the money when he’d talked about Karli’s behaviour escalating. It was one thing to form protest marches, and engage in theft in order to help others. It was quite another thing to blow up a supply depot with innocent people inside. 

 

She will escalate until you kill her

 

Bucky had been thinking for some time now about how this situation could end, and he was more certain than ever that there was no other way this could end without Karli’s death. 

He didn’t want that to be on Sam’s conscience. Sam felt some affinity towards Karli. He felt sympathy and understanding for her motivations. Bucky could understand that. The conversation he and Sam had had on the plane before arriving in Riga helped Bucky understand why Sam was so conflicted about Karli. Karli was fighting for the rights of an ignored and neglected minority group. A people who were seen as inconvenient and unnecessary, sucking up money and resources and demanding the same rights afforded to all humans - healthcare, housing, education, food, clothing. 

Sam agreed that Karli’s cause was worth fighting for. Bucky understood that too, of course he did. He wasn’t heartless. The plight of the displaced blip refugees moved him too. But he didn’t share Sam’s belief and confidence in Karli herself, as a young woman who was making wrong choices and could be talked round. 

Even if she listened to Sam, what difference would it make? There was still Walker. There was still the US government. There were Latvian citizens that Karli had blown up in that supply depot, along with the numerous countries who had her and the others on their wanted list for organising protests and initiating violence and stealing supplies.

Karli might be young, but she was still an adult. She was making her own choices, and she would suffer the consequences for those choices.

This could not just simply end with Karli agreeing not to engage in these behaviours anymore and her just slipping off to live a peaceful life. She wouldn’t agree to that, and even if Sam could convince her, no-one else would let that happen.

She was also a super-soldier, as were the others. That was not something that could be undone. And Zemo was right, the serum corrupted people. It had already been corrupting Karli - bringing out her rage and anger and injustice to the forefront and giving her the ability to use lethal force to get her message across.

Karli was going to die, Bucky knew this could not end in any other way. She would be killed and it would be devastating for Sam. Sam would feel that he had failed. Sam would feel that it was his fault, that he should have done things differently. 

He wanted to spare Sam the horror of seeing Karli’s death or, even worse, possibly being the cause of it. He didn’t know how to prevent this from happening. He could feel it ahead of them, looming on the horizon, and he’d been wracking his brain all morning to find some way that he could help Sam get the ending he was aiming for.

“And if you don’t?” Bucky asked. “What do you think is going to happen to her, and the others? After everything she’s done?”

“Then she’ll go to prison.” Sam’s voice was less confident now, and Bucky felt awful for being the one to shake Sam’s confidence. “Her and the others.”

“How?” Bucky pushed. “There isn’t a prison on Earth that can hold eight super-soldiers. The Raft only contained me because I wanted to be there. Karli isn’t going to agree to stay in prison.”

He had to say it outright to get his point across to Sam, no more beating around the bush. “She’s going to have to die, Sam.” He felt awful for the words coming out of his mouth, but he had to get this through to Sam. Sam had to know how this was going to end. “There’s no other way this can end. She and the others, they are all going to die.”

Sam’s face went ashen. But then he squared his shoulders and a look of righteous resolve passed across his face, so reminiscent of Steve that it almost took Bucky’s breath away. 

“I won’t let that happen.” 

Bucky refrained from saying that Sam might not have a choice. He licked his lips nervously.

“Look,” he said, “the serum is gone. Nagel is dead. The laboratory and everything in it was destroyed. The Flag Smashers aren’t Hydra, no-one is pulling their strings. They’re operating alone. Maybe that’s it for us. Maybe we need to consider that our part in this is over.”

He could see as he was talking that this was pointless. He had no chance of persuading Sam to walk away and leave this to Walker. He should have just kept his mouth shut.

“What’s brought this on?” Sam asked. “I don’t get it. You were so desperate to be involved and now you want us to just walk away?” 

Bucky stared at the frog sculptures adorning the fountain. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said quietly.

“Oh, Buck.” Sam sighed and sat down next to him. “It’s not your job to protect me. I choose to remain involved with this. I choose to believe that Karli can be reasoned with. And I have hope that this conflict will have a successful and peaceful resolution.”

Hope? Bucky thought. Hope was horrible. Hope was dreaming about a future that could never exist. He’d had hope, back in Siberia before his mind had been ripped away. Hope that someone would rescue him. Hope that the nightmare would come to an end. Hope that he would die.

Hope just made everything so much worse.

But he didn’t have it in him to destroy Sam’s belief in hope and he knew it wasn’t worth trying to deter Sam from this path. In some ways Sam was very like Steve. He had the same stubbornness, the same sense of right and wrong, justice and, above all, trusting in people and giving second chances. 

He tethered on the edge of telling Sam how like Steve he was. Tell him that Steve would have said the same thing, felt the same way. Refused to give up despite everything telling him that it was pointless. But then he remembered the last time he’d compared Sam to Steve. There’d been something in Sam’s body language and demeanour that suggested the comparison was unwelcome. Bucky couldn’t understand why Sam had responded this way, but he wasn’t about to do it again. 

“I hope you’re right,” was all Bucky said. “I really do.”

And he’d stay with Sam every step of the way, and follow Sam’s lead entirely and do what he could to help prevent what he felt must be inevitable. No more being subversive. No more undermining of Sam’s authority.

 

After a long, drawn out morning in which they made no progress at all, everything then descended into chaos very quickly. 

It started with a phone call. Karli rang Sam’s mobile number. It came up as an unknown number, and Sam answered it cautiously.

“Karli.” Sam looked baffled as he said her name, and Bucky was instantly on alert. “How did you get this number?”

Bucky could hear every word Karli said, even though Sam hadn’t put her on loud speaker. She’d tracked down Sam’s sister, phoned her pretending to be an old colleague of Sam’s who wanted to pass on news to him, and Sarah had given her Sam’s number. 

“She’s nice, your sister,” Karli said. “Friendly, helpful. She has two little boys doesn’t she? Cass and AJ. She told me all about them.”

Bucky could feel Sam’s fear as Karli spoke so casually about his family. Sam was tense, rigid, his voice clipped and sharp as he asked Karli what she was doing.

“They’ll be fine,” Karli said, “so long as you do what I say.”

She gave instructions for Sam to meet her alone and then hung up the phone. For a long moment Sam stared at his phone, in silence. 

“Sam…” Bucky said. 

“I’ve got to ring Sarah,” Sam said, “they’ve got to get somewhere safe.”

Bucky watched in silence as Sam paced round and round the fountain as he spoke to his sister. Then he rang someone else, presumably a military contact, to arrange protection for his family.

He felt awful for Sam, and terrified for Sam’s family. He’d never met any of them, but Sam had spoken of Sarah and his nephews often. Back when Sam used to visit Bucky in Wakanda he’d often talked about his sister and her two boys. She’d been widowed when AJ was only a baby - their father, another soldier, killed in action - and Sam had been their de facto father ever since.

Bucky felt furious on Sam’s behalf at Karli’s audacity. Sam had defended Karli, spoken on her behalf. He believed Karli could be talked round, saved. And Karli had chosen to attack him so personally by making threats to his loved ones. 

She was an idiot, Bucky thought, to risk making an enemy out of her only defender.

“You’re not going to see her alone,” Bucky said, once Sam had hung up the phone. He hated seeing Sam look so desolate, so defeated. “I don’t care what she says.”

Sam just nodded. “Midday,” he said. “She’s going to send me her location. Sarah sent the boys to stay with a friend but she won’t leave. Said she won’t be threatened out of her home.” He smiled softly, but his eyes remained worried. “So like her. She’s stubborn. But I’ve called in some favours and sent some people round to keep an eye on her. That’s all I can do.”

This was certainly going to test Sam’s resolve that Karli could be reasoned with peacefully, Bucky thought. And he doubted very much that Karli had taken such measures in order to just get Sam to speak with her alone.

Luckily Sam was having the same thoughts. “This is a trap,” he murmured. “Get me alone, get the jump on me.” He sounded disappointed. “She didn’t need to do it this way. It didn’t need to be like this. She’s scared. Defensive. She knows she’s in trouble and she’s lashing out.”

Then he drew himself up, and met Bucky’s gaze. 

“This is going to end in a fight.” Sam’s voice was serious. “You ready for that?”

Bucky nodded. 

“Time to suit up,” Sam said.

Well, Sam got ‘suited up’, anyway. He’d got his wings out last night, after his phone calls to Torres and Sharon, and spent the remainder of the night making sure that they were in good condition and combat ready. 

Bucky didn’t have a ‘suit’. He just had some clothes that he felt would be suitable for combat, and another shirt with a ripped off arm. It would have to do. Maybe he should have organised something more appropriate. No doubt if Zemo were still with them, he’d have arranged something better suited for combat.

Bucky recalled the Winter Soldier outfit Zemo had managed to procure for him back in Madripoor and held back a shudder. 

Never again.

Midday approached and Sam received coordinates from Karli. Karli had made a mistake by giving them time to prepare, time to organise, make plans. 

Karli’s meeting with Sam hadn’t been a trap. Not for them anyway. For them it was a diversion, to keep them busy while the others attacked Walker and Lemar. It was Sharon who made them aware of it, while Sam was talking to Karli. Her voice came through the earpiece telling them that her satellites had picked up Walker and the other Flag Smashers at a location on the other side of the city. 

Bucky cursed as he raced through the streets of Riga. They were making one mistake after another with the Flag Smashers and he couldn’t quell the feeling that it was all his fault. Karli and the others had capitalised on the split between them. Walker and Lemar operating as one pair, and Sam and Bucky as the other, instead of working together and Karli had used this to her advantage.  They should have stayed working together as a team. 

He could hear the sounds of fighting through his ear piece as he raced through the streets. Karli had got the lead on him, and she knew Riga better than he did. And Sam had taken to the air. No matter how fast Bucky could run, Sam was faster through the air without all the obstructions on the ground and he’d arrived much sooner than Bucky could.

He could hear shouting. Crashing and clanging. And then Sam’s voice:

“What did you do?” Accusing. Hard. Cold.

And Walker:

“They’ve got Lemar.”

It was horrible, hearing all this and being so far away from it, having no idea what was happening. 

How many Flag Smashers did Walker and Sam just fight? What did Walker do? Where was Lemar? Was he even still alive?

He saw Karli ahead of him, heading into an empty GRC resettlement camp. One of the places they’d looked round earlier this morning and found nothing there. 

He tore after her, as more sounds of fighting reached his ears, not through the ear-piece but from above his head. He raced towards the staircase Karli had just run up.

But then someone threw themselves at him from the top of the stairs, hurling both of them back down. Bucky quickly jumped back to his feet. It wasn’t Karli. It was one of the other Flag Smashers. A man. Bucky didn’t know his name. He didn’t know any of their names, apart from Karli’s. 

Bucky made quick work of him, knocking him unconscious and throwing him through a doorway. Then he carried on towards the sound of fighting. 

The moment he entered the room he drew the attention of four of the Flag Smashers. Clearly ganging up on him as the only super-soldier on his side of the fight. At least that meant less focus on Sam. During the fighting he kept his eye on Sam, who was doing an impressive job of holding his own. Sam had mastered to perfection the ability to use his wings in close combat - using them as a shield, as a weapon, and to propel himself away from the enemy when he was at risk of being overwhelmed. Bucky had no idea how Walker was faring, he was so focused on Sam and his own fight against four super-soldiers that he could not pay any attention to Walker.

“Hold him!” 

Bucky shot his head round to see Karli racing across the room, knife in hand, towards Walker, who was being restrained by two Flag Smashers. 

She was going to kill him. Before Bucky could move to intercept her Lemar suddenly appeared out of nowhere, hurling himself at her and she lashed out, screaming at him, using her super-soldier strength to hurl him across the room and then -

Crack! 

Bucky knew that sound. That was the sound of a spine snapping. He knew without looking that Lemar was dead. Karli had hurled him towards one of the pillars supporting the ceiling and she’d not held back. She’d thrown Lemar with all the force of a super-soldier and he was dead the moment he collided with the pillar. 

Everyone in the room froze as Lemar’s body slumped to the ground. Silence ruled as everyone stared, stupefied, at the dead body of Lemar Hoskins.

And then Walker was wrenching himself free from the arms holding him back, rushing across the room shouting Lemar’s name. And the spell was broken. As one, the Flag Smashers all - Karli included - raced out of the room. Sam was still staring across at Lemar, looking absolutely horrified. Walker was bent over Lemar, trying to wake him up. Begging, pleading and looking as though he was about to burst into tears.

Bucky recalled how close Lemar and Walker were. He wondered how long they’d been friends.

“John,” Sam said. “He’s not going to wake.”

And then Walker looked over at them, and the look on his face was terrifying. His eyes burned with a cold fury, narrowed into slits. His jaw was clenched tight, and his expression was murderous.

“Karli did this,” Walker said. “They all did this. They killed him. They killed him!”

Bucky felt a shiver run down his spine as he knew at that moment that Karli was a dead woman. All the Flag Smashers, they were now dead men walking. Walker would make sure of it.

And then, to Bucky’s absolute astonishment, Walker stood up suddenly and threw himself out of the window. They were on the third floor of the building. Bucky raced over towards the window and looked out to see Walker running off down the street. He’d landed on a car and Bucky could see that the roof was dented. 

“My God,” Bucky breathed, as he realised what that meant. He turned to Sam who was already heading out the door. “He’s taken the serum - Sam!”

“I know!” Sam shouted back at him as he left the room.

Bucky stared out through the shattered glass, his mind racing. 

When did Walker take the serum? He’d not had it with the fight with the Dora Milaje yesterday evening. It would have been obvious if he had. And how did he get it? Zemo said he’d destroyed it all. 

Bucky cursed himself again for running off yesterday. He should have stayed. He should have asked Zemo more questions about the serum, made sure that it was all destroyed. Zemo must have left a vial and Walker got his hands on it.

Walker took the serum. What had he been thinking? 

He recalled Walker’s voice yesterday when he’d spoken about the serum. He’d sounded envious. Jealous of Bucky’s strength and the power the serum afforded him. Of course he’d taken it when the opportunity had arisen, probably couldn’t resist.

And now Walker was a super-soldier. Fuelled by rage and anger and the desire for revenge.

The serum corrupts everyone it touches. Amplifying emotions, strengthening resolve and giving people the capability of causing immense harm.

This was bad. So very, very bad.

Bucky threw himself out of the window after Walker and raced off in the direction he had gone. He had to catch up with Walker before Walker did something horrendous. Walker wasn’t thinking straight. He was out for revenge.

Bucky was too late.

He knew he was too late the moment he found himself in a public square, a horde of onlookers with their phones out, staring completely horrified at the scene in front of them. 

It was Walker who caught his eye first. Not Walker himself, but what was clasped in his hand. The shield. Steve’s shield. Drenched in blood. Dripping with it. Blood stained Walker’s Captain America costume. His helmet. His boots. 

Walker was standing next to a statue in the centre of the square, holding the shield. He looked shaken. At his feet, lying on the steps, lay the mutilated, decapitated body of one of the male Flag Smashers.

Bucky felt his stomach turn at the sight, and he had to look away otherwise he genuinely thought he might throw up. 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to seeing such bloody, gory sights - but that was part of the problem. He was used to seeing such things. He’d done such things himself. And seeing this now brought it all suddenly back to him and he wasn’t prepared for it.

 

It was like being in an abattoir

 

That’s how he’d described it to Christina. The time he’d murdered his former friends and comrades - Dugan and Dernier - in front of two terrified children. He’d ripped them to pieces. 

He wasn’t seeing Walker and the dead Flag Smasher any more. He was seeing them . He was seeing himself . 

He took a deep breath and willed himself to stay calm. 

He would be no use to anyone if he let himself spiral into a panic attack right now. He had to pull himself together. 

His eyes sought out Sam in the crowd of people. There he was now, looking just as horrified and distraught as Bucky felt, staring at Walker, the shield, and the dead body on the steps leading up to the statue.

It was as if Sam felt Bucky’s gaze on him, for he suddenly tore his eyes away from Walker and met Bucky’s eyes with his own. Something unspoken passed between them, and Bucky nodded.

The Flag Smashers would have to wait. Walker was the priority now.  

As if sensing that something was about to happen, Walker suddenly launched himself away from the steps. The crowd shot back, clearing a path for Walker to race through and exit the square. 

Bucky met Sam’s eyes again and then, as one, they gave chase.

To Bucky’s relief, Walker led them away from the populated areas of the city. The last thing they needed was a fight surrounded by witnesses, or innocent bystanders getting accidentally hurt or killed.

Walker led them to an industrial part of the city, to warehouses which were, thankfully, empty. Bucky didn’t think Walker even realised they were following him, he was just trying to find somewhere where he could be alone. Somewhere to let out his grief for Lemar without anyone to see.

Bucky and Sam stopped at the entrance of the warehouse Walker had just entered. Bucky could hear Walker’s pained sounds of grief. 

“Let me do the talking,” Sam said. 

Bucky nodded instantly.

“He can’t keep the shield,” Bucky said. “Not now. Not after that.”

“I know,” Sam said. He looked pained. “I’d rather this not turn into a fight but I don’t think we can avoid it.”

Bucky nodded again. 

Sam took a deep breath and entered the warehouse. Bucky followed close behind.

Walker was crying. Squatted on the floor, bent over the shield. He looked so small and broken, not dangerous at all. But he was dangerous. Extremely so. Now more than ever.

Walker looked up as they approached and his face paled and he stared up at them.

“Time to get back to work.” Walker got slowly to his feet and adjusted the shield in his arms. Bucky felt a pang as he saw the shield was still stained with blood.

“No, John,” Sam said. “It’s over. You’re done.”

Sam’s tone was so serious. Firm. Controlled. Authoritative. Making it clear that he would brook no argument. Walker appeared surprised by Sam’s words. It was as if he expected Sam to just brush off what had just happened and continue on. 

“No.” Walker sounded panicked. “No. I didn’t do anything wrong. He was dangerous. He killed Lemar!” His voice raised until he was shouting. 

“No, he didn’t,” Sam said. “He didn’t kill Lemar. Karli did.”

Walker clasped the shield even tighter and stared across at them. Even though he was in mourning, upset, grief stricken, Bucky knew Walker could unleash himself at them without a second of warning. He clenched his fists. He was ready.

“It’s going to be okay, John.” Bucky didn’t know how Sam could keep his voice sounding so calm, so peaceful and reassuring.

“You’ve got a whole history of excellent military service,” Sam continued. “There’s mitigating circumstances. You’ll face a dishonourable discharge, but not prison. It’s not the end for you.”

Walker began to pace. It reminded Bucky of the day before when Walker had been pacing round and round while waiting for Sam to speak to Karli. What was the word Zemo had used to describe Walker?

 

Unhinged

 

That was exactly how Walker looked right now. 

Sam took a deep breath. 

“You need to go home,” he said. “Recover. Grieve. We’ll help explain what happened to Lemar, but you can’t do this anymore. And…” he hesitated for a moment, but he carried on, “you need to give me the shield.”

“Oh,” Walker said, and he let out a short humourless laugh. “That’s what this is about. The shield.” Walker looked down at it. “You want it for yourself.”

Sam shook his head. “That’s not it at all,” he said.

But Bucky could see that Walker was too far gone to listen to any reason. Walker was defensive, grief stricken, and frightened of the repercussions. He was a cornered, very dangerous and violent animal.

Walker adjusted his stance, facing them head on, drawing himself up to his full height, and holding the shield in front of him. He was ready for a fight.

“You don’t want to do this.” Walker looked first at Sam and then at Bucky.

Bucky thought about all the things Walker had said to him the day before. All those horrible words he’d hurled at him like knives, designed to hurt, designed to cause pain. He thought of how angry he’d been seeing Walker wield the shield that first time they’d met, in Germany. Walker’s attitude. And now Walker had taken the serum, and he had to be disarmed. The shield had to be taken from him. 

Bucky met Sam’s gaze, and Sam nodded at him. They were together in this. 

Bucky spoke up for the first time since entering the warehouse.

“Yes, we do,” he said. 

There was a moment where nothing happened, where each one of them waited for someone else to make the first move. And then Walker did.

The fight was bloody, brutal and quick. Walker had been peak human before taking the serum, and now he had the serum he was overpowered beyond measure. And Bucky… he’d never fared well in fights against other super-soldiers. Hydra never kept him in very good condition, and since leaving Hydra, Bucky hadn’t exactly been looking after himself very well. Bucky didn’t train. He barely ate or slept. Walker was a beast in comparison and if it had just been him versus Walker he seriously felt that he might not have been able to hold his own.

Sam was brilliant. The spacious empty warehouse gave Sam plenty of opportunity to utilise his wings to their full potential. He was able to put considerable distance between him and Walker if Walker got too focused on him, and could swiftly move around - getting in hits and punches and then flying out of reach. The wings were effective as weapons too, battering Walker almost as effectively as Bucky’s own punches.

Bucky got Walker’s gun off him and smashed it. It was his first priority, reducing the chance of this fight becoming lethal and ending in someone’s death.

His second priority was separating Walker from the shield. Not an easy task. He grappled with Walker for it, their hands both clutching the edges of the shield, both pulling, both holding on. Bucky felt his fingers slip on the blood and he almost let go.

Walker screamed in rage, and attempted to pull the shield away from Bucky.

“Why are you making me do this?” Walker growled at him. “Why are you making me do this!?” Louder the second time. And then he repeated it a third time, almost screaming the words at him. Walker’s eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he looked completely manic. 

And it made Bucky’s blood boil. The bastard. The absolute bastard. 

How many times had those words played out in Bucky’s mind over the seven decades he was in Hydra?

 

Why are you making me do this? 

 

Every time he’d been ordered to sit in that fucking Chair and have his mind wiped clean. Every time he’d seen that red notebook brought out because he’d been non-compliant or gone rogue. 

How dare Walker hurl those words at him. How dare Walker view himself as the victim. How dare he!?

No-one was making Walker do anything. Everything Walker was doing was entirely of his own free will and it was enraging to hear Walker abdicate his responsibility for his actions and choices. 

Bucky’s fury at Walker gave him a renewed vigour. He wrenched the shield away from Walker so hard that Walker fell forward, and let go of it. Sam swooped in from above and knocked Walker back, away from Bucky and the shield. And…

Bucky had the shield

There it was in his hands. After all this time, he had it. Finally. The weight of it was so familiar. How many times had he held the shield in his hands, helping Steve practise with it? How many times had he picked it up and passed it on to Steve, before Steve had learned how to throw it so it came back to him? 

And then Walker was on him again, tearing the shield out of Bucky’s grip. Bucky obstinately held on tight, and Walker spun him round and round before he found himself being hurled across the room.

And then he was encompassed by a pain that was all too familiar. Electricity. It ran through his entire body, completely disabling him. 

Electrical generator

It felt like the Chair again. It wasn’t as strong as the Chair, or as painful, but the images it brought back to his mind were enough to overpower him. 

He was back there . He knew it. He was in Siberia. General Markarov. Or maybe it was Karpov. Or… Or… 

He expected to hear a voice in Russian. 

 

Zhelaniye

Semnadtsat…

Ready to Comply

 

The words were on his lips

 

And then he heard a scream of pain, and it brought him back to the present. 

That was Sam

He was still shaking, either from the memory or from the electricity, he didn’t know, but he wrenched his eyes open and focused on what was happening now. 

Walker was on top of Sam. The shield raised aloft, and Sam’s arms were in front of his face, trying to defend himself.

The image of the mutilated and decapitated Flag Smasher returned to Bucky’s mind. The blood drenched shield. 

He would not let that happen to Sam. He would not let the shield be drenched with Sam’s blood.

He’d die before he let that happen. 

He threw himself at Walker and lost all control of himself. He was punching every part of Walker that he could find. He tore the shield from Walker’s grip and hurled it far away from them and continued to absolutely pummell the living daylights out of the other man.

Sam had almost died. 

Walker almost killed him

He couldn’t hold back. He threw everything he had into those punches, not letting up for a second. Not giving Walker an opening to retaliate, too fast for Walker to be able to properly defend himself. 

And then Sam was there, grabbing Walker’s arm and using his wings and jet pack to push, and Bucky pulled and then there was a resounding snap! that echoed throughout the warehouse and Walker was screaming in pain, clutching his broken arm. 

But even that wasn’t enough to stop him. Walker continued to fight, despite knowing now that he had lost. The only way to end the fight was to knock him out cold. Which Bucky and Sam did, together, using the shield.

And then it was over. 

Sam collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily, looking utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. Bucky knelt next to him, eyes roving over Sam’s body to check for injuries. Despite everything, Sam looked okay. He wasn’t badly hurt. Bruised and scratched and tired, but no broken bones. No bleeding. Nothing serious. 

Bucky was in much the same way as Sam, but he would heal quickly. As would Walker probably, now he was a Super-Soldier too.

What on Earth were they going to do about that? Bucky wondered. They’d been so focused on the shield and getting Walker to stand down that they’d not really thought about what to do now Walker had taken the serum. Everything had happened so quickly, and now they had yet another super-soldier to deal with. A far more dangerous one.

What a mess.

Bucky pulled himself to his feet and retrieved the shield. Now he had it, he never wanted to let it go. Never wanted to risk it getting into someone else’s hands who would misuse it, someone else who didn’t deserve it.

But it wasn’t his to keep. It couldn’t be his to keep. 

He walked back over to Sam, who was still lying on the ground. Sam looked up as he approached and attempted to pull himself up into a sitting position. It was difficult for him, with the wings holding him back, and he was clearly exhausted. Bucky grabbed Sam’s right arm with his left and helped him to sit up.  He then offered the shield to Sam.

“Here,” Bucky said. 

Sam stared at the shield. He looked worried. Uncertain. 

“Whatever you choose to do,” Bucky said quickly, “I’m on board with it. Your choice.”

Sam looked like he was close to tears as he reached out for the shield with trembling hands. He rubbed at it with his sleeve, in an effort to wipe away some of the blood. He looked completely distraught.

“This is all my fault.” Sam’s voice, normally so calm and in control, cracked. Hearing the pain in his voice gave Bucky a desperate urge to reassure him, to make him feel better. “All my…”

“No.” Bucky knelt down next to Sam, and rested his metal arm on Sam’s shoulder. “No, it’s not.” 

Sam placed the shield on his lap. “You were right,” he said. “I should never have given up the shield. This all happened because of…”

“Don’t.” Bucky quickly cut across Sam’s words of self-blame and recrimination. “It’s not your fault.” He said the words slowly and clearly, his eyes gazing into Sam’s unblinking so that Sam could see that Bucky meant what he was saying.

“How can you say that?” Sam asked. “You were so angry with me for giving it up. And now this…”

“I was wrong,” Bucky answered. “And I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Sam still looked like he was on the brink of tears. The shield was in his lap and he was still fruitlessly rubbing at the blood, only succeeding to smear it even more over the shield. Bucky felt an all encompassing urge to hug Sam tight. To wrap his arms around him, to comfort him, to reassure him. To make him feel safe. Loved. To make him know that no matter what, Bucky was on his side, and he’d never be angry with him again.

But he didn’t know if he could do that. If that would be too much. Too unwelcome. So he stayed still, with his metal arm wrapped round Sam’s shoulders. Side by side, almost an embrace, but not quite. Sam stared down at the shield. Bucky stared at Sam.

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky said again, “I should never have been angry with you. I wish so much that I could have done things differently.”

Sam’s eyes were wet. He looked like if he said another word that he would burst into tears.

It suddenly occurred to Bucky just how horrible the last few hours had been for Sam. Only a few short hours ago Karli had threatened his family. Sam had been so worried, so anxious about that. Calling in favours to protect his sister, getting his nephews out of there. And then he’d gone to meet Karli, hoping to talk to her. Someone who’d he’d defended, believed in, and she’d tricked them. Used Sam’s kindness and understanding against him, to create a diversion. 

And then Lemar’s death. Lemar hadn’t been a friend to either of them. But they’d worked with him. Lemar had been friendly, loyal. He’d backed Sam up, made Walker listen to Sam. They were working together. And Sam had seen Lemar die right in front of him. 

And then… How much of the Flag Smasher’s death had Sam witnessed? Bucky didn’t know. Sam had got to the square before he had, because Bucky had wasted precious moments upon his realisation that Walker had taken the serum. The aftermath of Walker’s killing of the man had almost thrown Bucky into a flashback induced panic attack, but what if Sam had actually seen the whole thing? That in itself would have been utterly traumatising.

Sam had hoped that this situation could be resolved without bloodshed, and those hopes had now been firmly dashed to the ground. Bucky had wanted to protect Sam from that, to preserve Sam’s faith and belief in hope. But he couldn’t change what had happened.

“God Sam,” Bucky breathed, “I’m so sorry, for all of this.”

“Look at you,” Sam said, “blaming yourself. Typical.”

Bucky let out a laugh, relieved that Sam was sounding a little more like himself. Then, to Bucky’s surprise, Sam turned his head and rested his own forehead against Bucky’s. He let go of the shield and he grasped Bucky’s free arm, his right arm, in his own.

And they sat there like that, in this strange uncomfortable embrace, not quite a hug, for several minutes, in complete silence. Bucky ached all over, but he would be damned if he was the one to end this no matter how uncomfortable the position was.  

It was Sam who broke the silence, and the embrace. He extricated himself from Bucky and wiped at his eyes once again, before seizing the shield and pulling himself to his feet. Bucky jumped to his feet as well, feeling slightly shaky from Sam’s display of vulnerability. 

“What are we going to do about Walker?” Sam asked, gesturing at the man who remained unconscious in the centre of the warehouse.

Bucky didn’t know how to answer that question. What a mess this situation with the Flag Smashers had become. And now there was Walker to contend with. Another super-soldier. Another problem.

Zemo would have killed him, Bucky thought. If he were here he’d march over right now, pull a gun out of nowhere, and shoot Walker in the head.

But neither he nor Sam were going to do that. They were going to have to let Walker go, and that was going to create yet another problem that Bucky had no idea how they were going to resolve.

“No-one can know about him,” Bucky said. “You know the government can’t find out about this.”

The President would be thrilled to have another Super-Soldier under his control. And Walker was a soldier, first and foremost, and excellent at following orders. 

“I know,” Sam said. “But how do we keep this from getting out?”

Before Bucky could answer Sam’s question, Walker began to stir. 

 

Chapter 42: The Paradox of Living

The Paradox of Living

 

 

Walker slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He looked exhausted and in pain, cradling his broken arm close to his body. While he could still be incredibly dangerous due to the serum, it was clear to see that he had no spirit left for fighting. His body language screamed defeat.

Bucky and Sam walked over towards him, and he blinked up at them. 

“Your arm will heal quickly.” Bucky found it difficult to keep the contempt out of his voice. He felt a strong urge to slap Walker across the face with his metal arm but resisted it, barely.

He stood back as Sam squatted down next to Walker.

“John.” Sam’s voice was so calm, so soothing. “It’s really important that you take our advice here. No-one can know that you’ve taken the serum. You can’t tell anyone. And we won’t either.”

Walker looked confused. “What are you talking about?” He looked between the two of them, with a bewildered expression on his face.

Bucky spoke up next. “Here’s the thing, Walker,” he said bluntly. He couldn’t match Sam’s calmness, he hated Walker too much for that. “What do you think the American government will do when they find out that their favourite loyal army pet is a super soldier?”

Walker shook his head, still looking bewildered.

“I’ll tell you what they’ll do,” Bucky continued. “And believe me when I tell you that I speak from experience. They’ll use you. They’ll want to control you, own you completely. They’ll practically worship and love you, but they’ll be so terrified of you that they’ll do anything to make you theirs . Completely and utterly.”

“You’re married,” Sam said, smoothly taking over and following Bucky’s train of thought perfectly. It was almost as if they’d prepared this conversation in advance given how in sync they were. “Do you have children?”

Walker’s face paled.

“The moment they find out about this,” Bucky said, “they’ll use your family to control you. I guarantee it. They’ll hold their safety and lives over your head in order to get you to do what they want. That’s the path you’ve chosen.”

Bucky could see from the fear and alarm that crossed Walker’s face that his words had sunk in and taken root. 

“We won’t tell anyone about this,” Sam said. “And you shouldn’t either. Go home, accept your dishonourable discharge, recover. Then take your family and move away. Keep them safe. Disappear.”

Walker nodded. 

Bucky wanted to say more. He wanted to ask Walker what on Earth had possessed him to take the serum. He wanted to grab Walker by the shoulders and shake him, beat some sense into him. But it would all be pointless. Walker had taken the serum. It was irreversible. There would be nothing to gain from ranting at him about it. Time for them all to move on. 

Sam called Torres to come and collect them. To take him, Walker and Lemar’s body back to the States. Bucky wasn’t going to join them. He had a loose end that it was his responsibility to tie up.

Zemo.

Sam needed to go back. The Flag Smashers had threatened his family, and he should be with them. It took Sam some persuading once he realised that Bucky had no intentions to return with them to the States just yet. Sam wanted to come with him, but Bucky was adamant that this was his task, and that Sam must be with his family.

Bucky stayed long enough to help Sam gather up his broken wings, smashed beyond repair, and helped to recover Lemar’s body and waited with him and Walker for Torres to come and collect them. 

Then it was time to move on.

“I should come with you,” Sam said, for what must be the tenth time since Bucky had told him he would be helping the Wakandans recover Zemo before returning to the States. 

“Don’t be silly,” Bucky said. “Someone sensible has to go back and explain what happened. And Sarah’s been ringing you like crazy for the last three hours, you can’t put her off.”

Sam pulled him into a rough hug. 

“Get yourself back as quickly as possible,” Sam instructed him. “Don’t mess around.”

Bucky nodded.

“I’ll be with my sister,” Sam said. “Come and visit whenever you want. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Bucky had to fight a desperate urge to return with Sam, but he had a job to do. Ayo and the other Dora Milaje were waiting for him. He was the one who’d brought Zemo into this mission, and it was his responsibility to ensure that Zemo was returned to prison.

He had a feeling that this would be a simple task. As loathe as he was to admit it, he and Zemo had some shared understanding between them - perhaps due to the connection forced between them when Zemo had used the trigger words on him in 2016. It wasn’t difficult to put himself inside Zemo’s shoes and consider what his thought processes would be.

Zemo would know that it was over now. He had lost the protection given to him by Bucky and Sam and was now being hunted. Zemo would know that there was no point trying to remain in hiding, that it was inevitable that he would be found. Zemo knew that the Wakandans would be searching for him, and he would also think that Walker was searching for him too. 

Bucky recalled how Zemo’s face had paled at the prospect of Walker getting hold of him.

That man is unhinged Zemo had said.

Zemo would far rather take his chances with Bucky and the Dora Milaje rather than risk Walker getting his hands on him. This meant that he would be somewhere obvious waiting for them. Somewhere that Bucky would know where to find him.

Since I’ve been imprisoned I haven’t been able to visit the memorial. Have either of you been?

Of course you haven’t. Why would you?

The conversation they’d had with Zemo on the plane about Sokovia rose easily into his mind. Of course that’s where Zemo would go. And that’s where Zemo would expect Bucky to find him. The connection between them worked both ways. 

And he was exactly right. 

He told Ayo to take him to the ruins of Novi Grad, where a statue had been erected to honour the memory of the Sokovians who died when the city was destroyed. This statue was the only remaining landmark of a country that had been partitioned off and absorbed into the surrounding nations. 

He begged Ayo to allow him to speak to Zemo alone first. He could feel that there was something unfinished between them, even though he couldn’t put his finger on what that was. Zemo had been so odd the entire time he’d been with them. He’d been enigmatic and mysterious, and his motivations and actions were hard to understand and pin down. There were times when Zemo had been sympathetic, understanding, almost a compatriot. And then there’d been times when Zemo had been manipulative and cruel, relishing in Bucky’s pain. 

If he allowed Zemo to return to prison now, without having the opportunity to speak to him and understand him better, it felt like unfinished business. There would be question marks that would continue to fester, and he had enough of those already. 

And fortunately Ayo agreed to land the Wakandan craft some distance away, concealed and undetectable, and for her and the others to remain out of sight to give Bucky time to approach Zemo alone, and talk to him. 

And Zemo was exactly where Bucky thought he would be. Standing silently, waiting, in front of the memorial, his head bowed as if in prayer. The statue depicted a traditional Sokovian family holding the coat of arms of Sokovia - a crowned bird with wings outstretched.

Bucky approached him, not bothering to conceal his presence, and stood off to one side - in Zemo’s field of vision, and waited for Zemo to finish paying his respects.

After a few minutes Zemo raised his head. He didn’t look around or acknowledge Bucky’s presence in any way. Instead he just spoke.

“I’ve come to a very important decision,” Zemo said.

“Oh yes?” Bucky asked. “What’s that?”

Zemo looked round at him, finally. 

“I’m going to let you live,” he said simply.

It was so absurd that it was almost funny. Bucky might have let out a derisive laugh had it not been for the serious and earnest look on Zemo’s face. Zemo meant his words. Zemo, on some level, saw himself as an arbiter of justice, with the capability not only to pass judgement on Bucky, but also to execute him if he saw fit.

“Well,” Bucky said, “that’s a relief.”

Zemo turned back to face the memorial, and Bucky stepped a little closer. 

“Whatever happened to super-soldiers should not be allowed to exist ?” Bucky asked, quoting the words he’d heard Zemo say to Sam back in Latvia. “ The serum corrupts everyone it touches." He quoted Zemo’s words mockingly. “Mad, bad or dead, right? That’s how they all end up.”

He felt uncomfortable. Zemo was staring right at him, his eyes piercing into his very soul, it felt like. As if Zemo was able to see deep inside him which, Bucky reminded himself, he probably could. 

“I was wrong,” Zemo said. Three simple words, but they made Bucky feel something inexplicable deep inside him. A tightening in his stomach, and a fluttering in his chest. 

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked, suddenly feeling frantic. “Those were your words. You said it yourself. And I know it’s true. I’ve lived it.”

Why he was so desperately pushing Zemo about this, he couldn’t tell. It was like his core beliefs had been challenged, and to have them taken away would turn his world upside down and leave him empty. The serum was inherently bad. It turned everyone mad, bad or dead. The only person it didn’t was Steve, because Steve was inherently good . Steve was one in a million. A billion. Steve had been special. Incorruptible. Not like Bucky. Or the supersoldiers that followed.

Isaiah Bradley?

Bucky had already wondered where Isaiah fit into this. Isaiah didn’t follow the rules about the serum that Bucky knew to be true. Does that mean Isaiah was special as well, like Steve, or did that make Bucky wrong?

“The serum amplifies that which is already within,” Zemo explained. “It gives people the strength and ability to do the things they already wanted to do. Like power. Power doesn’t corrupt. It reveals. The serum does the same thing.”

Bucky stepped forward again, feeling desperately confused. “What do you mean?”

“Take Karli and the others,” Zemo explained patiently. “The serum didn’t make them angry. It didn’t make them steal. It didn’t make them blow up the supply depot killing innocent people within. They were already angry. They were already filled with a sense of injustice and hate. The serum just gave them the means to do something about it. It gave them the strength to oppose those that had done them great wrong.”

Bucky thought about Walker. He had been behaving oddly since before he’d taken the serum. Unhinged Zemo had called him. That might be a cruel word but it was a fitting one. He remembered Walker pacing around the room while waiting for Sam to speak to Karli, muttering to himself. And then the nasty words he’d hurled at Bucky. All of that had been before Walker had taken the serum. 

It felt like pieces were fitting together inside his brain, making connections he hadn’t made before, making realisations. 

“What about Steve?” he asked. “How does Steve fit into this?”

“Rogers?” Zemo asked. “You would know better than I which qualities of his were amplified by the serum.”

Stubbornness Bucky thought. A strong sense of right and wrong. Dependable. Honesty. Brave. 

He could see that Zemo’s words were making sense. The serum couldn’t make something appear that wasn’t already there. Back during the war, the Red Skull had been given an early, incomplete version of the serum. He’d been a Nazi. He’d felt superior to others. Wanted to lead a race of ‘perfect’ humans. That was how he’d been. And then he’d taken the serum which had taken those beliefs and values and turned them up a notch. But they’d already been there. 

The five super-soldiers Zemo had killed in Siberia. They’d been Hydra’s elite kill squad. Blood thirsty, dangerous. They’d been given the serum and of course they’d ended up being uncontrollable and had to be contained. They’d taken dangerous men and women and given them incredible power. It showed an incredible lack of understanding about the nature of the serum.

When Steve had taken the serum he’d been skinny, and weak with a desperate desire to prove himself. He wanted to be able to stop bullies. He wanted to fight for his country and save lives. The serum gave him the power to do all that, but his core qualities remained the same.

But then…

“What about me?” Bucky asked, desperately. “What does that mean for me?”

“It took me a while to figure that out,” Zemo said, turning back to face the monument. “From the moment you turned up at my prison, I’ve been trying to work out where to place you amongst all the others.”

The penny dropped. “That’s why you’ve been so weird?” Bucky asked. “You’ve been trying to figure out if I’m… I’m…” he trailed off. Mad or Bad, he thought. He’d often wondered which. Sometimes he felt he was both. 

But if what Zemo was saying was true about the serum, then what did that mean for Bucky? 

What qualities did Bucky have which the serum amplified?

Fear he thought. Weakness. Cowardice. Despair.

The Winter Soldier was created in fear.

“I’ve been wondering about you for years,” Zemo said. “Ever since I created my plan to break up the Avengers and found out about the super soldiers in Siberia. I believed, as you do, that the serum is inherently bad, that it corrupts everyone it touches. I thought Steve Rogers was an outlier. I assumed the serum had corrupted you as well. But even then… my beliefs were challenged. And this is what made me give you a chance now. When you turned up in Germany two weeks ago and asked for my help, I thought, this was a chance to understand you better. And so I’ve been pushing you. To see how you respond. To learn about you.”

“What do you mean, your beliefs were challenged?” Bucky asked. 

“Karpov,” Zemo said. Bucky felt his insides turn cold. Karpov was the handler in the 90s before he was given to the Americans. He was the one who’d sent Bucky to kill Howard Stark and presided over the five failed supersoldiers. His memory of the time was fuzzy, as was everything in that decade, but he could picture Karpov as clear as day.

“When I killed Karpov,” Zemo said, “that’s where I found the red notebook, along with a host of other Hydra documentation that existed nowhere else.”

Bucky quickly filed away the knowledge that Zemo had killed Karpov. He didn’t want to question him on it now, as he was desperate to hear what Zemo had to say, but this was something he would have to think about later. 

“I found some papers, dating back decades, all about you,” Zemo said. “Like diary entries by different handlers, passed down from one to another. It was all filled with entries about issues they’d had with you over the years. Do you want to know what they were?”

Bucky remained silent. He was too terrified to say anything, in case Zemo stopped talking. But he was also terrified to hear what Zemo would say. 

“The number of times you refused to kill witnesses,” Zemo said, “unless you were expressly ordered to, and even then you liked to find loopholes. All the times you turned up late for your rendezvous because you got distracted by birds, or flowers or something. They had to be clear about what they were asking in mission reports because if they weren’t you’d end up talking about how brightly the sun shone, or the beauty in a muddy puddle or something. The notebook was full of tips and ideas on how to manage that, because they couldn’t stop it.”

Bucky felt frozen in place. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to even think because Zemo’s words had him utterly transfixed. 

“You formed attachments to people, in Hydra. Did you know that?” Zemo asked.

Bucky thought of Rumlow. 

“If someone you were attached to got themselves into trouble, you’d go out of your way to save them. Even causing yourself injury. You were a priceless asset and you’d put yourself into harm’s way to save a worthless Hydra peon. They hated that. That came up a lot. They called it your hero complex. Even after all those decades they were never able to wipe it out of you.”

“Everything I’ve learned about you then, and since then, and over the last two weeks, has helped me to understand you completely.” Zemo continued. “The qualities the serum enhanced in you.”

“And what are they?” Bucky asked, finally finding his voice. 

“Loyalty,” Zemo said. “Kindness. The ability to see beauty in the darkness. Strength. Self-sacrifice. Forgiveness.”

Bucky swallowed and he felt a stinging in his eyes. He would never have thought of such positive words to describe himself. That these words came from Zemo of all people was astonishing. And they were completely the opposite of how Bucky had always felt about himself. But Zemo wouldn’t be lying, would he? Why would he lie? What on Earth would he have to gain from lying about this?

Could he dare to begin to believe that Zemo was speaking the truth?

“If I took the serum,” Zemo murmured, “I wonder what qualities it would enhance in myself.”

That was a horrifying thought. Without the serum Zemo was formidable in his own right. Look at what he’d been able to do in 2016. 

“Revenge,” Zemo said. “Like Karli, I sought revenge and retribution and to make things right. With the serum it would have consumed me, even more than it did.”

Zemo ran a finger down the memorial, over the face of the small child. And Bucky stepped forward again so that he and Zemo were standing side by side, staring up at the memorial.

“I am sorry,” Bucky said, “about your son. I can’t think of much worse. How old was he?”

Zemo smiled sadly, looking up at the figure of the child. “Too young,” he said. 

“Grief and loss are old friends of mine,” Zemo said. “My mother and my brother died when I was a child. My father, wife and son all died together. And I’m still here. Some of us are meant only for grief and sorrow and loss. The Avengers killed my family, and they were hailed as heroes for resolving a situation that they themselves caused. They offered no apologies. They gave statements justifying their actions. That the loss of one city was justified in order to save the world from a menace they created. And yet I was seen as the villain, for enacting a just revenge. They were lauded as heroes for destroying an entire country, and I am the one imprisoned. How is that fair?”

“Life isn’t fair,” Bucky said. 

“No, it isn’t,” Zemo turned back to him and appraised him thoughtfully. “Life isn’t fair. If it was, my son wouldn’t have been killed by his favourite Avenger. If life was fair the Avengers would have faced repercussions for what they did to my country. If life was fair you wouldn’t have spent seventy years enslaved and controlled. If life was fair you wouldn’t be in the exact same position right now.”

“What does that mean?” Bucky frowned. 

“Why did you get involved with… all this?” Zemo waved a hand. “The Flag Smashers. Why are you here ?”

Bucky stared at him. “Why wouldn’t I get involved?” he asked. “I had to. I couldn’t ignore it.”

“Did you want to?” Zemo pressed.

Bucky felt a slight annoyance creep up on him. He’d had a similar conversation with Christina about involving himself with the Flag Smashers and he didn’t like how these conversations made him feel.

“No-one told me to get involved,” Bucky snapped back, “I received no orders. I chose to help out.”

“Why?” Zemo continued to push.

“Because… because…” Bucky looked around as if the correct answer was floating nearby, that he could snatch out of the air. “Because I don’t think I could have lived with myself had I not. It would have been difficult to do otherwise.”

“Difficult?” Zemo questioned.

“Impossible,” Bucky said. And then it really hit him why Christina and now Zemo had questioned him so much about this. Back when Christina had asked him, months and months ago now, what he wanted he’d said he wanted to be left alone. 

To be free of the weight of other people expectations

They want me to be their super-soldier. I did that already. I don’t want to do it again.

I’m not a replacement for Steve

And yet the moment something had come up, he had to involve himself in it. Because he could no more stand by and allowed bad things to happen than the Earth could stop spinning on its axis.

“So it was your burden but also your choice,” Zemo said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

Bucky was feeling uncomfortable. He didn’t like how easily Zemo could get inside his head and understand him, could read his thoughts. 

“I suppose so,” he said. 

“Such is the paradox of living,” Zemo said blankly. “We willingly accept we have no will.”

How much of a choice is it, Bucky thought, to do something that you feel compelled to do, even if it appears to be your own free will? The government wanted a pet super-soldier to go out and solve their problems and he’d done exactly that. He’d walked right into it, willingly. He’d not seen it. But in all of his astuteness Zemo had seen it. So had Christina. 

Used to being used was how he’d described himself to Christina once. So much so that he willingly allowed it to happen. 

He felt the kimyomo bead in his right hand buzz. Their time was up. Ayo and the Dora Milaje were now coming to apprehend Zemo. Had he got what he wanted from Zemo? He wasn’t sure. God knows he still had questions, and there were things he’d wanted to say that he’d not had the chance to. He’d wanted to confront Zemo about forcing him to wear the Winter Soldier outfit, something which he now felt had been unnecessary. There must have been other ways to get the information they needed. He wanted to ask Zemo why he’d spent so much time trying to drive a wedge between him and Sam. Why’d he been so cruel asking Bucky if he had tried to kill himself. 

But maybe Zemo had answered those questions already. Zemo said he’d been trying to push Bucky to see his true nature under the serum. His qualities. Had all that been part of it? Tests? To see how Bucky would react? To see how far Bucky would be willing to push himself for the greater good? And it seemed that Bucky had passed Zemo’s tests, because Zemo no longer grouped him with the others who had taken the serum. Zemo was grouping him with Steve, something which seemed astonishing to Bucky. 

Bucky was going to have to spend some time later going over this conversation in his mind, and try to make more sense of it. What was that word Christina used about trying to make sense of something - unpicking? Yes, he would have to spend some time later unpicking this conversation. 

Ayo and the two other Dora Milaje approached, spears at the ready. Zemo looked over at them, a look of resignation on his face. 

“I am resigned to my fate,” he said quietly to Bucky. “I realised long ago that death is not for me, as much as I’ve sought it.” He looked back up at the memorial. At the statues’ faces. “I would like to be with my wife and my son,” he murmured. “But I cannot. Staying alive… imprisoned, unable to die… it’s my penance. For all the evil I have committed in their names.”

He turned to follow Ayo and the five of them watched as the Wakanda aircraft landed appeared out of nowhere in the sky and landed gracefully and silently next to them. 

Before entering the craft, Zemo grabbed Bucky’s arm.

“Look James,” Zemo said, his voice now fervent and serious. “I know you may believe it was your free choice to be involved with the Flag Smashers. And that whatever you involve yourself in later, you will believe it will be your choice to do that too. But I can see it is more to do with a sense of duty or obligation or some misguided attempt to make amends, all of which I can understand. But you must be careful, James. You’re too skilled and strong to be left alone. The government, SHIELD, SWORD, CIA, Avengers, whatever new group may be formed, they’ll want you to work for them and they’ll take advantage of your guilt to manipulate you. They’ll want to use you.”

Bucky pulled his arm out of Zemo’s grip and stared at him, wide eyed as Zemo’s words sunk in. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of. The moment he’d been released from the Raft last year he’d been suspicious about why the government had seen fit to release him, after everything he had done and knowing how damaged his mind was. He’d just warned Walker about the potential horrors that lay ahead of him now he was a super soldier, and if Walker was smart he’d listen to his and Sam’s advice, take his family and vanish, to live in obscurity and safety, just as Isaiah was doing. But Bucky didn’t have that luxury. Everyone knew who he was. Everyone knew he was a super-soldier. He was no longer controlled by Hydra but now here he was stumbling around and under a different kind of control. 

“They will use you,” Zemo repeated. “They are using you. Don’t let them. You’ve been used enough. And I’m sorry for my part in that.”

Bucky felt too stupefied to answer and stepped back, watching as the Dora Milaje escorted Zemo onto the plane and led him through to the back, where Bucky knew there’d be a cell waiting for him. 

“Where are you going to take him?” Bucky asked Ayo. 

“The Raft,” Ayo said. “The prison in Germany was clearly not enough to contain him. And Wakanda has no desire to start a war by keeping him.”

Bucky nodded. Zemo belonged in prison. He’d committed no end of crimes willingly. Killed innocent civilians, and country leaders all in search for retribution and revenge. He was manipulative and dangerous and exceedingly intelligent. But Bucky couldn’t help feeling some empathy for the other man, for the losses he’d experienced which had led him down his dark path. But at the end of the day, Zemo was accountable for his own choices and actions, and he must face the just repercussions. 

“We’ll take you back home,” Ayo said. On the flight over to get Zemo she’d explained to Bucky that his relationship with Wakanda was now on somewhat shaky ground, due to his actions with Zemo. Helping them to retrieve Zemo went some way towards mending that relationship but it wouldn’t be the same as it was. Even though Bucky hadn’t technically broken Zemo out of prison, it was still his responsibility that he had. Looking back now, Bucky could see how rash and impulsive he’d been, and he wished that he’d taken the time back then to talk to Sam and make proper plans rather than just rushing in doing his own thing. But he couldn’t change the past, all he could do now was to do his best to right his wrongs. The wrongs he’d done to Wakanda. And the wrongs he’d done to Sam as well. 

And there was something that was on his mind that might help with that.

“Ayo,” he said. “I wonder if I could ask a favour.”

Her eyes flashed. “A favour?” She sounded incredulous. “You may have assisted us with Zemo, but it doesn’t make up for the harm you’ve done to Wakanda after everything that Wakanda did for you.”

“It’s not for me,” Bucky said hurriedly. “I wouldn’t ask for myself. It’s for Sam.”

Ayo said nothing, which Bucky took as permission to continue.

“It’s his wings,” Bucky explained. “They were destroyed by Walker. And he has no way to get a replacement. I just wondered if Shuri might agree to…”

“I will ask her,” Ayo said, leading him onto the plane. Smoothly and silently the doors closed and the plane took to the air. Shuri would agree, he thought. 

She’d jump at the opportunity to design something for Sam. She relished in having the opportunity to design and create something new. And the Wakandans liked Sam. Of course she would agree.

“I have some ideas for the design and features,” Bucky said, “if you could pass those on as well.”

He felt excited. Sam had kept the shield. He’d not expressly said that he would use it and become Captain America, but Bucky had hope that he would. He’d said that he would agree to whatever choice Sam made, and he’d meant it, but the thought of Sam soaring through the sky using new Wakandan made Vibranium wings, with a new drone to replace Redwing, wielding the shield was exhilarating. And he really wished this was something that Sam would choose to do. But it must be Sam’s choice, and Bucky would accept it. 

Sam had issued Bucky an invitation to visit him and Sarah in Louisiana. He would do that, and take the new wings with him. He had to make things right with Sam and he’d barely managed to scratch the surface with his apology the other day. But if he went to visit Sam, maybe stay in the area for a weekend, that would give plenty of time for them to talk properly. In a safe location, somewhere Sam would feel comfortable, without any time constraints or pressure. And Bucky would bring a great apology gift with him as well, as a start. 

But first he must go back to Brooklyn, return to therapy. He’d left Christina hanging the other day as well, shouting down the phone at her before hurling it into a river. They’d need to talk, and then he would go visit Sam. He felt enthused. He knew exactly what he needed to do, he had a plan. He’d fixed things with the Wakandans and that was great. But he had some other bridges to mend as well.

 

Chapter 43: Communication is Key

Communication is Key

 

It felt strange, returning to his apartment in Brooklyn. Everything was just as he left it. There was no sign that anyone had been there in his absence. Bucky wandered around mindlessly for a while, absentmindedly checking that nothing had been moved or taken. He then sat down on his couch and stared around the room, feeling strangely empty and at a loss. 

He’d spent month after month going through the motions of existence. His life had been filled with nothing but therapy, restless sleep, and the occasional forays to the library or to see Yori. He’d been, in a way, content with it. For the most part life over the last few months had been predictable, reliable, uneventful. And yet, in the space of only three weeks his life had completely turned upside down, throwing him into a whirlwind of adventure, excitement, high adrenaline, stress and drama and heightened emotions. He’d gone from extreme highs to incredible lows. 

And now he was back he felt strangely empty. 

What was supposed to happen now? Go back to the way things were? Surely not. He didn’t think he could. 

Back to therapy three times a week. Back to worrying about Yori and whether he was doing the right thing keeping this strange friendship up - he was pretty certain he knew the answer to that. Back to sleepless nights and strange eating habits, and treading on eggshells in case he did something wrong that would lead to army and police at his door, or Christina’s annoying babysitters.

He didn’t want to go back to that. He’d got a taste of something different and the prospect of life returning to the state it was in only three weeks ago wasn’t a pleasant one. 

Bucky lit up a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. He felt low. Really really low. All the excitement he’d had earlier on the plane with Ayo had gone. He’d spent the journey excitedly reeling off wing and drone designs for Ayo to pass on to Shuri. He’d felt enthused, excited. But all of that high emotion and happy feeling had dissipated the moment he’d opened to the door and entered his apartment.

There was no reason to feel this way, he told himself. His apartment was much nicer than it used to be. It was no longer as bare and empty as it had once been. He had furniture. He had bookcases now for all his old books and Steve’s sketchbooks. Maybe there was more he could do to make it feel more like a home. He’d always meant to put up some of his photographs, maybe he should do that. They were still packed away, hidden behind the television, inside his box of things I don’t know what to do with - as he called it. 

He reminded himself that things were different now. He was on speaking terms with Sam. He was probably going to go and visit Sam very soon, take him his new vibranium wings once Shuri delivered them to him. That was a positive change. But try as he might, even that thought couldn’t raise his spirits. He couldn’t stop thinking about how much he had hurt Sam - not just over the last three weeks, but also over the last few months. Sam had never done him any wrong, had only tried to help and support him, and Bucky had thrown all of that back in his face hurling anger and disappointment at him and Sam hadn’t deserved any of it. 

And what worried Bucky the most was the thought that he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t carry on acting this way towards Sam. He’d never actively set out to hurt Sam. He’d not wanted to be subversive and keep things from him. It was just that he couldn’t stop himself from behaving the way he did and saying the things he’d said. 

He’d promised Sam he would do better. Sam had seen right through him and replied:

 

Actions speak louder than words

 

And he’d been exactly right. It was easy to tell Sam he was sorry. It was easy to say things would be different. But much harder to put into practice when he didn’t know why he did the hurtful things and how to stop himself from doing exactly the same in the future. 

Giving Sam the best gift ever and repeating his apologies wouldn’t be enough, he knew that. Sam deserved better than someone who would just hurt him over and over again. It was his damn brain, sabotaging every part of his life because he was so screwed up. 

He pulled out his new phone, and punched out a short message to Christina.

 

I’m back

 

She replied instantly. 

 

See you tomorrow morning then

 

No question mark. It wasn’t a request. It was a statement. Tomorrow was Friday. Therapy was Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10am without fail. Back to the old routine. He wondered if it would ever come to an end.

He didn’t reply. He just set the phone down and stared blankly at the black television screen. He was dreading returning to therapy. His head whirled with the myriad of events that had happened since he and Christina had last seen each other, replaying one screw up after another. 

 

Sam. Zemo. Walker. Shelby. Nagel. Madripoor. Latvia.

 

She’d want to bring it all up, talk about it. Talk about the phone call they’d had in Madripoor when he refused to return home even though he’d promised her at the outset that he would return if she felt it necessary. Talk about Walker reading his therapy notes. She’d want to go through everything. Dissecting every detail and making him have feelings about it. And he really couldn’t bear the thought of going through everything. And not only that, he’d been faced with the real stark reality that people were reading his therapy notes. He’d known from the outset that Christina was sending summaries of their sessions on to someone . But it was one thing to be vaguely aware of a group of faceless and nameless people potentially reading through the notes, it was quite another to have Walker proudly boast about it and use this knowledge as a weapon to hurt him. 

He didn’t know how he could possibly be fully open in therapy again. How could he feel safe to talk about all those personal and private details of his past knowing that anyone could have access to them? 

He felt too low to ring Sam to let him know that he was back safe and sound. He just didn’t have it in him to manage a conversation right now. He sent a message, short and to the point, letting Sam know that Zemo had been apprehended, that he was back in Brooklyn, and hoping that his family was all well.  He then turned his phone off so he couldn’t see Sam’s reply or potentially Sam attempting to ring him. 

He didn’t know what to do about Sam. He’d been so confident earlier, so excited and enthused about taking Sam his wings and trying to make things right with him. But the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that Sam would be better off without Bucky in his life. It was like Yori all over again. Bucky had got himself enmeshed with both Sam and Yori, in an incredibly unhealthy and harmful dynamic, knowing that the best thing for both would be to just vanish from their lives. But he felt incapable of doing so because to do so would cause them incredible harm. 

 

These thoughts remained with him for the whole night, jumping from one problem and anxiety to another, never giving him a moment to properly think any one thing through. Therapy, Sam, Yori, Walker, Zemo - all these thoughts, and even more, cycled through his brain over and over. He did not sleep at all. 

 

He arrived for therapy at 10am on the dot. Despite his misgivings and the dread he’d been feeling about it all night he would not risk the consequences of not showing up, or being late. Last time he’d missed therapy it had resulted in a warrant for his arrest. He didn’t want to spend any more time in a jail cell. He was certain that therapy was going to be hell today, and even as he walked in he didn’t know if he was even going to engage at all as he’d got himself all worked up about his therapy notes and who was reading them.

But then Christina said something that he’d not expected. No sooner had he sat down and reluctantly forced himself to make eye contact with her, she leant forward in her chair and immediately threw them into the topic of his therapy notes.

“I want to make it clear with you, straight away,” Christina said, “that I’m no longer sending back any summaries of our sessions after what happened earlier this week.”

He’d not expected that at all. “How did you manage that?”

“I wasn’t happy, not happy at all,” she replied, “hearing that Walker had seen the summaries of our time together. I want you to know that that was inappropriate, and wrong, and should never have been allowed to happen.”

She sounded so passionate, it took him by surprise. He could see in her face how earnest she was, that she meant every single word. She looked furious. 

“I thought you might have been mistaken,” she continued, “so I made some calls. Eventually I got a call back confirming that after Walker met you in Germany, he was given access to everything. Unrestricted access.” She shook her head. “It was considered justified given your involvement with the FlagSmashers, and that Walker would need to know more about you. Even if that’s the case, there are better ways to manage this. And certainly nothing should have been shared without your knowledge and, ideally, consent.”

Bucky felt that it wouldn’t have been quite so bad and shocking as it had been, had he been informed that Walker had seen his therapy notes and knew everything about him. It would still have felt like an incredible intrusion, but at least he’d have known about it, and been told why it was necessary. 

Christina continued. “So I informed my superior in the White House that I would no longer be providing summaries of our sessions.”

“And they agreed?” Bucky asked.

“I said it was unethical and no longer in the public interest.” She then hesitated a brief moment. “I also said that if they didn’t agree that I would refuse to work under those conditions any longer.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “You threatened to quit?” He felt strangely panicked at the thought. Clearly Christina hadn’t quit, as she was here right now talking with him. But she could have quit. Could have left him to be given another therapist who would toe the line and do as she was told. It had taken months to get to feel safe with Christina, he couldn’t start over again with someone else.

“I wouldn’t have,” she hastened to reassure him. “I reminded them of the importance of consistency in the therapeutic relationship, the need for trust, as well as all the good progress you have made. I suspected that they would be beyond worried if I moved away. And so they agreed, as I knew they would. They wouldn’t want to take the risk of losing me and allocating you a new therapist. And even if they did call my bluff, I’d never have followed through, I promise you that.”

Bucky felt impressed and slightly touched by Christina’s advocacy on his behalf. 

“Well, I hope you also pushed for a payrise." He was only half joking. “I’m sure they’re not paying you nearly enough for this.”

“Is that your way of telling me you think I’m doing a good job?” she asked lightly, with a smile.

He smiled back, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. 

“All joking aside,” she said, “I was truly angry to hear that they had shared such personal information with Walker. I knew from that moment that this could shatter the trust we’ve worked so hard to build with each other. And we need that trust. I can’t have you being afraid to tell me things. So from now on, it’s all completely confidential.”

“Everything?” he pushed.

“I will send back an attendance record, confirming that you’ve attended the sessions. I will also be obliged to pass back information if I think you are a risk to yourself or to other people. That’s a requirement for anyone in therapy.”

Bucky nodded, he had no argument against that.

“And when we feel ready to end our sessions I will be required to write a short assessment justifying why - something which you and I can work on together. ”

Ready to end - was that really a possibility? He figured on some level he must have known that therapy would come to an end someday, but it came as a shock to hear her say those words out loud. Therapy had become his routine. It gave him some purpose and direction, he hated and needed it at the same time. He felt odd about the idea of one day walking away from here for the last time, and slightly panicked.

“So.” Christina clapped her hands together, and lent back in her chair. “What would be helpful for us to talk about today?”

“Excuse me?” It was just one surprise after another today, and he’d only been here less than half an hour. 

“I’ve been reflecting on how usually I’m the one who takes the lead about what we talk about. I think it would be more helpful if you choose.”

He remained silent, unsure about how to answer. He’d been so worried about coming to therapy today, about being made to talk about all the things he didn’t want to, worried about Christina’s summaries and who was reading them and now everything had turned completely on its head and he was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

“I can give you some suggestions,” Christina offered, “there’s been a lot happening over the last three weeks we could talk about, or perhaps there’s something else on your mind.”

He felt his heartbeat pick up speed as he considered this, because there was something on his mind, something that he desperately wanted help with, but he was scared to open his mouth and say it. Scared and ashamed to say out loud that he wanted her help to manage things better with Sam. Scared to admit that he liked Sam, a lot, and that he didn’t know what to do about it. 

Christina fell silent and watched him as he silently wrestled with himself, trying to bring up the courage to tell her what he really wanted to talk about. 

“There’s something…” He started talking, and then he stopped. And now he was making it far worse than it had to be. Bigging it up as if it were something huge, when all he had to do was say something along the lines of I would like some help with Sam and then she would move the conversation forward for him. Now he was starting to wish she’d just chosen today’s topic for them, like she usually did. But he didn’t want to talk about Madripoor. He didn’t want to talk about how Shelby made him feel as she appraised him, slowly walking in circles around him, talking about him, running a finger down his cheek. He didn’t want to talk about Walker in Latvia, throwing cold hard words at him like knives, bringing up some of the worst events of the last few months. He didn’t want to talk about Zemo and how he’d let the Wakandans down by encouraging him to escape prison and Sam who’d he kept secrets from and let down again and again and again…

“I keep doing things,” Bucky heard himself say. “Hurtful things. Things I don’t want to do, and I promised Sam I wouldn’t do them again, but I’m worried I can’t.”

“Okay,” Christina said. “This is about Sam.” A pause. “You believe that you’ve done things which have hurt Sam -”

“-I don’t believe I have!” Bucky felt exasperated. “I know I have. I didn’t tell him I was planning to break Zemo out of prison. I treated him like his opinions didn’t matter. I ignored all his warnings and advice. I lost my temper with him and shouted at him, when he was only trying to help and I keep doing these things, again and again and again. And I want to stop!”

The last word came out louder than he’d intended, and he shrank in on himself a little as he’d not meant to shout at her. 

“I keep pushing him away,” Bucky said, quieter now. “And I don’t know why I keep doing it. Even last night… I turned my phone off so he couldn’t ring me, and the last thing he said to me was ‘don’t be a stranger’ and then I just turned my phone off. I promised him things would be different and I can’t stop doing it. I can’t stop hurting him.”

Christina passed him the jug of water, and he poured himself a glass automatically. He noticed that she was still using plastic cups. Probably sensible given his propensity to break things.

“This is normal, James,” she said soothingly. “This is typical behaviour for a dissociative survivor of trauma. You carry a lot of shame, and it is this shame that makes it difficult for you to maintain healthy friendships, or relationships.”

Bucky sighed, tuning her out immediately upon hearing the word ‘shame’. Her common buzzword that was starting to lose all meaning to him. She could tell she was losing him as she quickly rephrased.

“You can’t deny that you have incredibly low self-esteem,” she said. “We’ve talked before about how your view of yourself is influenced by many factors. Your history with Hydra, your experiences in the war, your childhood, puberty, and sexual orientation. You feel unworthy. Unworthy of happiness. Unworthy of good, solid healthy relationships and friendships, unworthy of people like Sam. On a subconscious level you feel that it is only a matter of time before Sam sees how unworthy you are, and that he will then discard you and abandon you. Your brain is trying to protect you from this. It’s a psychological defence mechanism. Your brain is trying to make it so Sam can’t reject you, because you will reject him first. In a way, it’s like it's trying to give you control over your own rejection.”

Bucky blinked at her, astonished. 

“You’re telling me,” he said slowly, “that all of this is my brain trying to protect me again. Protecting me by just making things worse for me?”

They’d had this conversation before, about his brain making him do stupid things in order to protect him. His brain was really starting to piss him off. Making him reject Sam in order to avoid being rejected by Sam. Making him push Sam away. 

“Your brain spent over seventy years learning to adapt in order to ensure your survival,” she said. “It’s had to learn new ways of responding, of thinking, of being, in order to get you through every single day. This is what you needed . But now you don’t need it, and it takes time, a long time, for your brain to learn that you are safe now and that people can be trusted.”

“I trust Sam.” Bucky swallowed a lump that had started to form in his throat. “I do. Of course I do.”

“I know you do,” Christina said. “But part of your brain is still there. In that state of high stress. In survival mode. Not trusting. Not feeling safe. And trying its hardest to keep you safe the way it has kept you safe all those decades.”

Bucky sipped at his water. 

“God,” he said. “How can I fix it, make it go away?”

“You can’t, not just like that,” she said. “As with all things, it takes time. It’s not necessarily something that can be fixed, but it’s something that you learn to live with, and adapt to.”

Bucky shook his head. He didn’t have time. He needed to make things right with Sam, and it was urgent. 

“We address it by talking about it,” she said. “By having insight into our behaviours, and why we act the way we do. By being mindful about our impact on others, and being kind to ourselves and forgiving when we mess up.” 

“Is this how it’ll always be?” Bucky asked. “Will I always push people away? Do things that hurt them? Can I never have real friendships? Can I never have, for example, a relationship?” He felt despair creeping through him. He’d thought therapy would make him well. Turn him into a normal person. But the more he was experiencing therapy the more he had been beginning to realise that it wasn’t about fixing him, it was more about adjusting. Learning to understand and live with the parts of himself that annoyed him so much.

“Of course you can have friendships and relationships,” Christina said. “There are many, many survivors of incredible traumas who go on to have happy and fulfilling relationships. You can have a relationship, James, if you want. The key thing is understanding yourself. Knowing why you do the things you do. And that’s what we can work on in therapy. The other key thing in a relationship is communication. Talking to Sam, explaining things to him, so he can understand as well. Working together with him -”

“-Who said we’re talking about Sam?” Bucky cut across her quickly, suddenly feeling incredibly anxious. 

She looked confused. “We’re not talking about Sam?” she asked. 

“I mean, in general,” Bucky said, feeling like a complete idiot. “A relationship in general. With anyone.”

Christina frowned. “Do you want to be in a relationship with someone?” she asked. “A romantic relationship?”

Bucky rested his right hand over his eyes and groaned internally. “God, I don’t know.” He was feeling incredibly embarrassed now, and regretted bringing up this topic completely. 

“Look.” He avoided her eyes. “I don’t know what I want, okay? I don’t even know…” he shook his head. “I don’t know what it even means to be in a relationship. I mean… I’ve had… I had…” He took a deep breath. “I had people. I had Jack. We were together for years.” He couldn’t remember if he’d ever mentioned Jack to her. He assumed Jack had come up at some point but if not he figured she’d quickly catch up. 

“But it wasn’t a relationship,” he said. “It couldn’t be. Because it was the 1930s. We’d never get married, or have a family or live together. God, we barely saw each other from one month to the next, particularly after Steve moved in with me on his 18th birthday. Jack couldn’t exactly come over. I couldn’t go over to his because he had such nosy neighbours who were already spreading rumours about him. We were lucky to be able to have a quick fumble down some shady alley once every three or four months.”

He felt his face flare up as he talked, but he persevered. 

“One time, Steve almost walked in on us because he got back early from college. He was studying art. Felt unwell or something so came home. Thank God he was so oblivious because I thought for certain we’d been rumbled.” 

 

Even after all this time he felt the stab of guilt and shame that he’d felt as he’d introduced Jack to Steve - 

 

My friend from the Club

 

- before he’d hastily shooed Jack out of the door. 

 

Why are the curtains closed? Steve had asked. It’s the middle of the day!

 

And there’d Jack been quickly and surreptitiously tying up his shoelaces as Steve went round the windows and let the light in. 

 

It had been too close a call, and it was the last time he’d invited Jack over. 

 

“So I don’t know if I want a relationship because I don’t know what it means to be in a relationship. And if I started one… well… I’d just be experimenting wouldn’t I? I’d bring all this baggage and weird psychological behaviours, and trying out a real relationship for the first time and it’s not… it’s not… it wouldn’t be fair… to… to -”

He hung his head. 

“I am talking about Sam,” he said, so quietly he wasn’t sure she could even hear. Why the pretence? He wanted - needed - Christina to help him, and she couldn’t do that if he wasn’t honest with her. 

“I know you are,” she replied. 

“And it wouldn’t be fair to him, would it?” Bucky asked. “He deserves better than my mess.”

“Have you asked him what he wants?” Christina asked neutrally. “Have you talked to him about how you feel?”

Bucky hesitated. “Not really. I kinda yelled something at him in Madripoor, about… about ‘liking’ him. And I’m pretty certain he knows and I think… I think maybe, maybe there’s something there?” His voice rose like he was asking a question, because he really wasn’t sure. 

He remembered the strange embrace he and Sam had shared after the fight with Walker. Sam had needed that just as much as Bucky had. Bucky couldn’t be sure, but he felt that Sam must feel something for him in return. Maybe it wasn’t quite at the same level, but he felt there was something there.

“Well, I think it might help to talk to him about this,” Christina said. “Like I said, communication is key. You seem to think that Sam deserves better than you, but I think Sam might have his own thoughts about that. You want to be fair to Sam? I think being honest with him, and giving him the opportunity to tell you what he wants, would be the fair thing, rather than making that decision for him.”

“I want to go and visit him soon,” Bucky said. “Maybe this weekend, I’m just waiting for something. I was going to apologise properly for everything. Explain things.”

“Perhaps some of what we’ve spoken about here today will help you,” she prompted. “I think it will help Sam to understand a little bit about why you’ve acted the way you do. Be open with him. You are not going to get everything right all the time, there are times when you will slip up, but the important thing is that you talk about it.”

“I don’t know about that, Christina,” Bucky said. “It just sounds like I’d be making excuses to him. That just doesn’t seem fair to him.”

“Well, Sam has the right to say no,” Christina said. “He has the ability to hear what you have to say and put in boundaries if he chooses to. And you need to be prepared for that. If you do speak to him about your feelings, be aware that he may not reciprocate those feelings. Even if he does share those feelings, he still may not feel able to enter into a relationship with you. And it’s okay if he feels that way.”

“I know it is,” Bucky said quickly. “If it’s too much for him, I’d understand. Of course I would. I just don’t know…”

He stared out of the window. 

“Maybe it’s not the right time,” he mused. “Maybe I should wait a bit. Stay friends with him. Show him that I can do better. You and I can talk about the things that make me this way, all the shame stuff, and help me change my behaviour.”

“I think it’s a great idea to put those conversations on the table for future sessions,” Christina agreed, “regardless of what you choose to say to Sam. We’ve touched on these issues before, but never really had the opportunity to explore them in depth.”

Yes, Bucky thought, because he’d deliberately shied away from those conversations. Christina had wanted to talk about his ‘internalised homophobia’ as she’d put it. Wanted to talk about his views about ‘liking men’ and his experiences growing up in the 30s. She believed that it would help address his feelings of ‘shame’. Bucky couldn’t help but imagine how excruciating it would be to talk about any of that, but then, they’d talked about plenty of embarrassing stuff, hadn’t they? He’d told her about Rumlow. He’d told her about the scientists and their experiments in the 90s, and Fennhoff and General Markarov. And just today he’d utterly debased himself by talking about having feelings for Sam and relationships. Maybe he could manage to talk about these things.

And if it helped him work things out with Sam, maybe he should talk about these things.

Christina closed off the session by talking to him about self-care activities. Now he was back in Brooklyn he should try to get back into a proper routine. Sleeping, eating, exercising, and such. She gave him a new notebook to keep track of everything. He’d never engaged massively well with her self-care tasks before, but he vowed to try to do better this time. 

“Self-care is linked to self-worth,” Christina said. “Feeling worthy of looking after yourself, meeting your own needs. I don’t expect you will fill it in all the time, and that’s okay. Just do what you can.”

And if low self-worth was partly responsible for making him behave horribly towards Sam, then he’d better start addressing it. If Christina was right, and his brain was pushing him to reject Sam because he felt unworthy of him, then this was something that he could do that could help fix that. 

Christina also gave him a list of affirmations which she slipped into the front page of the notebook. He glanced down at them. They read things like ‘I am lovable’, ‘I am worthy of care’. He couldn’t stop himself from screwing up his face as he read through the list. 

“Really?” he asked. 

“I know it seems cheesy,” Christina said. “But taking a bit of time every now and again to tell yourself these things can make a world of difference.”

He closed the notebook. “If you say so,” he muttered. Sure he’d read the list, because why not? What harm would that do? But he wasn’t about to start standing in front of a mirror and reeling them off. He felt embarrassed just thinking about it. 

 

It ended up being one of their longer sessions, and he was relieved when it was finally over. He needed to get back home and do some thinking. He needed to think about Sam. About what he would say to Sam next time they met. Would he do as Christina suggested and talk to him about his feelings? Communicate properly? The prospect was terrifying. But there was also something tempting about it as well. Because if it went well, then maybe something could grow between the two of them. If Sam felt okay about it, of course. Maybe Sam did return his feelings, as Bucky suspected he did, and if they talked about it… 

Bucky remembered the time he kissed Sam, so many months ago now, and the absolute chaos that followed. He made a mental promise to himself that if anything did happen, Sam would have to make the first move. 

He wasn’t about to make that mistake again.

Chapter 44: Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part One

Chapter 15 – Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part One

 

Bucky watched from a distance as Sam conversed animatedly and enthusiastically with people who he assumed were Sam’s neighbours and family friends. 

He gripped the Wakandan briefcase tightly with his metal fingers and took this moment to compose himself, and mentally prepare himself for whatever lay ahead.

Sam was expecting him today: he hadn’t just turned up out of the blue. When he’d returned home from therapy the day before, he’d arrived to find the large, solid, metal briefcase waiting for him. There was no sign of forced entry. No sign to indicate anyone had been there other than what had been left behind. He expected no less from the Dora Milaje. 

Shuri had worked incredibly quickly. It had only been three days since he’d asked her to consider making Sam new wings. Vibranium of course, and he’d requested a vibranium weave suit. He guessed that she must have taken to the task with gusto, and launched herself into it, for the turn around to be so fast. 

He tried to open the briefcase. The moment he saw it he threw himself across the room eager to see the contents. Eager to see how much of his advice Shuri had taken, whether she’d included a new drone, and the suit. But to his dismay he found that he couldn’t open it. There was a panel on the front that glowed red when he ran his fingers over it. Only Sam could open it. 

Fair play, Bucky considered, although he was disappointed. He’d hoped to be able to see it first before passing it over to Sam. But never mind, he trusted Shuri to have done a good job with it. 

So he finally turned his phone back on to ring Sam, pacing round and round the briefcase in small circles as he waited for Sam to answer. Belatedly remembering, just as Sam answered the phone, that he’d not checked to see if Sam had tried to contact him last night after he’d switched his phone off.

He launched immediately into an apology - better to be safe than sorry after all - telling Sam that he’d just felt a little weird when he returned home and needed to be alone for a bit. 

Sam didn’t appear bothered in the slightest, and Bucky quickly asked how his sister and nephews were doing.

“They’re back at home,” Sam replied. “I’m staying with them for a while. Karli and the others have gone complete radio silence and it’s a waiting game now. I’m glad, though. It’s nice to be back, and have the rest, and spend time with everyone. A bit of downtime.”

Steve had always hated waiting, Bucky thought. Hated rest periods, the feeling of being stuck in limbo and not making any progress. He was always rushing off to the next fight, the next task, the next mission. Downtime had never been in Steve’s vocabulary. Maybe it should have been. But Steve hadn’t had loved ones to spend that time with, and he felt too responsible for fixing all the problems the world had to offer to be able to sit back and just enjoy his life. He was always moving from one fight to another. 

He suddenly felt inexplicably sad. He mentally shook the feeling away. He was happy for Sam, relieved that Sam could have and enjoy his quiet moments, his moments of peace with his family. 

And then Bucky suddenly felt guilty, because here he was ringing up with the intention of intruding on that peace. But Sam had offered, hadn’t he? 

“You said I could come and see you.” Bucky hesitated, feeling unsure now whether this was even appropriate to ask. “Is that still…”

“Of course.” Sam talked before Bucky could even finish his question. “Any time, Buck. I meant it.”

“How about tomorrow?” Bucky asked. “I know it’s short notice,” he quickly hedged, “but I’m back at therapy three times a week so it needs to be a weekend and…”

I don’t want to wait.

He couldn’t say that.

“No problem,” Sam said. “I’ll be at the docks most likely, I’ll ping you over my location tomorrow morning. Let me know what time you’ll be arriving.”

Bucky realised that he was practically beaming down the phone. Thank God Sam couldn’t see him, he must look like an idiot. 

“You selling the boat?” Bucky asked, remembering past conversations with Sam about how he’d been trying to persuade his sister to sell his parents’ old fishing boat.

“Fixing it,” Sam said. “Or trying to.”

“Sarah got you to change your mind about selling it?”

There was a pause before Sam answered. “I think I realised,” Sam said slowly, “that its history and relevance is just too important to cast away. And it’s worth doing everything I can to keep it and, maybe, even restore it back to its former glory.” He laughed. “Or at least make it so she won’t sink! She’s worth it.”

Bucky had felt good after this conversation with Sam. Optimistic, even. He looked up and booked his flights to New Orleans, and then packed up for a night away. He’d not asked Sam about staying over. He wouldn’t presume. He could always stop at a hotel. Or get an earlier flight back. He’d play it by ear. 

And now he was here. He’d messaged Sam as he got into his taxi from New Orleans to update him, and Sam sent him his location at the docks. The Wilson Family Seafood docks. He guessed that Sarah and Sam’s nephews must live nearby in the old family home that had belonged to Sam’s parents.

And there was Sam just ahead, chatting easily with a group of seven or eight men and women. Smiling, laughing. Sam’s whole face lit up with joy and humour. It was wonderful to see, but it made Bucky feel slightly uneasy. Even though Sam knew he was coming, even though it was all agreed and organised, it still felt like he was intruding. Invading Sam’s peaceful space, his downtime, and poisoning it with all of his own negativity, trauma and drama. 

Try to channel Christina, Bucky told himself. His mind drifted to those bloody affirmations Christina gave him. 

Today will be a good day because I will make it so . 

He mentally slapped himself, but the words gave him some resolve, for he grasped the briefcase tighter, shifted his backpack on his shoulder and moved forward.

Sam noticed him, and walked away from the group, patting someone on the back and making a comment which made the other man laugh. The group dispersed, muttering about engines, as Sam and Bucky faced each other. 

Bucky suddenly felt at a loss for words. Should he launch into an apology? Offer the briefcase? Update Sam properly about Zemo? Or maybe just start off with saying hello and making some small talk. 

He used to be better at this. He used to be a charismatic conversationalist, once upon a time. Now he was so awkward it was embarrassing.

Sam - thank god for Sam - resolved Bucky’s internal agonising by slinging an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and directing his attention towards the boat moored at the dock. 

“There she is,” Sam said proudly, waving an arm at The Paul and Darlene. “Not at her best quite yet, but she’s a beaut.”

“Your parents?” Bucky guessed.

Sam nodded. 

It was the height of summer, and unbelievably hot. Sam was wearing sensible clothing for the weather. Bucky, as usual, was decked out in gloves, a shirt with long sleeves and a jacket. He’d been uncomfortably hot ever since arriving in New Orleans, and it was only going to get worse as the day progressed. 

Bucky put down his bag and the briefcase and shrugged off his jacket. He hesitated a moment before rolling up both his sleeves and taking off both his gloves and shoving them in a pocket of his backpack. This was Sam, after all. He didn’t need to feel embarrassed or awkward around Sam. And the few men and women milling around on the docks, lifting crates and talking, they were Sam’s friends. Normal, good, honest people. 

His metal arm gleamed prominently in the sunshine. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had it out on display around people in a context that wasn’t fighting. For so long his arm had been a weapon it was a strange kind of reminder, perhaps a necessary one, that it was still just his arm. Not just a tool for war and death.

Sam didn’t comment on it, which helped quell Bucky’s feeling of self-consciousness. Sam’s eyes were directed down, looking at the briefcase, with a look of curiosity on his face.

Bucky picked up the case.

“So I found Zemo at the Sokovian memorial he told us about,” Bucky said. “Gave him back to the Wakandans. He’s back in prison now.”

“In Germany?” Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head. “They took him to the Raft.”

“Well, that’s good,” Sam said. “Best place for him. He won’t be leaving there any time soon.”

Bucky recalled the look on Zemo’s face when the Dora Milaje had come to take him away. 

I am resigned to my fate

“I doubt any prison can hold Zemo if he has a reason to leave it,” Bucky said. “Not even the Raft. He’s a slippery one. Clever. He won’t be there long if he doesn’t want to be.”

Sam frowned. “You almost sound as if you admire him.” 

Admire was the wrong word. It wasn’t admiration. It was empathy. It was a mutual understanding of a shared lived experience. But he didn’t think Sam would get that. Sam didn’t have the same weird bond with Zemo that Bucky had. Sam hadn’t heard what Zemo had said at the memorial earlier that week. All Sam knew was that Zemo had lied, stabbed them in the back multiple times, undermined them, and been deceptive and manipulative.

Not so far from what he himself had been like towards Sam over the last few weeks, Bucky realised miserably.

“Well, he does grow on you.” Bucky said.

Sam stared at him as if he had suddenly sprouted two heads. 

“Yes,” he said sardonically. “Just like mildew.” He shook his head. “Bucky…?” He looked perplexed. Bucky was suddenly very aware that the conversation was veering wildly off course.

“I’d rather work with Zemo than Walker.”

Sam could hardly disagree with that. 

“Anyway.” Bucky waved his arm dismissively, trying to get back on track. “I don’t want to talk about Zemo or Walker.” He placed the briefcase down on a shelf amid drill parts and other tools. 

Sam’s eyes followed the briefcase. “That’s Wakandan design.”

Bucky felt a bubble of excitement rise through him. “That’s what I wanted to tell you - the Wakandans were so grateful to me for getting Zemo back -”

Sam interrupted him. “Even though you broke him out of prison in the first place.”

Bucky sighed. “I told you, I did not break Zemo out of prison.”

“You did something, Bucky,” Sam said. “You were responsible.”

Bucky knew that. But he didn’t want to start talking about that right now. He wanted Sam to open the briefcase. He didn’t want guilt and recrimination. He ignored Sam and ploughed on.

“As I was saying,” he continued, “they were so grateful that they agreed to make you this.”

Bucky gestured towards the briefcase, his eyes never leaving Sam’s face, taking in his expression. 

He could tell the moment that the words hit, it took a little while for them to sink in. Sam’s face changed from one of mild curiosity to disbelief. 

“This is for me?” Sam reached out to touch the box. “What is it?”

Bucky was tempted to say Open it and see but he was too excited.

“It’s new wings!” he blurted out. “To replace the ones Walker broke.” He paused, savouring the moment before he revealed the best part. “They’re vibranium.”

Sam’s hand, reaching out towards the box, dropped and he looked at Bucky, a look of complete and utter shock on his face.

“I know,” Bucky said, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. If he’d been a little kid he’d have been jumping up and down on the spot. 

“That’s quite a gift.” Sam’s voice shook ever so slightly, and he reached out again towards the box. 

“I know,” Bucky repeated. “For some reason the Wakandans seem to like me. Or maybe it’s you they like.”

“Understandable,” Sam said. He still wasn’t opening the box, which was incredibly frustrating. Sam appeared a little overwhelmed. But he looked happy. Pleased. 

“I might have made some suggestions about the design and features,” Bucky said. 

Sam put on an expression of mock worry and horror. “Oh God,” he said. 

Bucky rolled his eyes.  He couldn’t bear the anticipation any longer. He wanted to see what Shuri had made Sam. He wanted to see Sam’s expression when he opened the box and saw everything inside. It was exciting. “Open it up and see what you think.”

Sam reached out towards the case with both hands, but before he could run his finger over the sensor at the opening an explosion of noise, banging and hissing, interrupted them. And then a woman’s shout, footsteps rushing over, calling Sam’s name.

Sam and Bucky both pivoted to look on the deck of the boat, where a pipe had come loose, hot steam rising out of it. 

“Shit,” Sam said. He jumped down onto the boat and picked up a wrench. 

The woman who had rushed over slowed down and stopped next to Bucky. Sam appeared to have everything under control. Bucky eyed the woman. He recognised her from the Christmas videos Sam had shown him. This was Sarah, Sam’s sister. Seeing her in person he could see the similarities between them now. She turned to face him, a questioning expression on her face. And then, as was so often the case with everyone the first time they met him, her eyes lowered to take in the sleek black and gold metal of his left arm. She did a slight double take, her face going into an ‘oh’ of surprise and recognition.

Bucky opened his mouth to introduce himself but only managed to get out a “hi” before another bang sounded and the hissing grew louder, drawing both their attention to Sam wrestling with the pipe.

“No,” Bucky called down towards Sam, “you got to turn it the other way.” He watched Sam struggle with it a bit longer. “No, the other other way.” He hopped down onto the deck and flapped a hand at Sam to get him to move out of the way. Sam let go of the wrench and let Bucky take over. 

“You got to go up, see?” Bucky made quick work of the pipe and the noises stopped. He looked up at Sam, expecting some kind of validation or response but realised with a slight self-conscious lurch that Sam was now staring at the metal arm. 

“Um…” Bucky said.

“Why not use the arm?” Sam asked curiously. “Instead of the wrench?”

Bucky let out a laugh, feeling incredibly relieved. 

“Oh,” he said, looking down at it as well. “I don’t always think to use it immediately. I’m right handed.”

“Of course you are,” Sam said. He patted Bucky on the shoulder. “Right handed.” He rolled his eyes.

Bucky looked around the deck of the boat. From what Sam had always been saying about the boat, it needed a lot of work. Bucky had observed a lot on the dock when he’d arrived. He’d seen the engine parts, sheets of fibreglass, epoxy, and numerous tools littering the area. The boat would likely need rudder repair, engine overhaul, gelcoat repair, the seacock valves would need servicing, the boat would need stripping, sanding, hull cleaning, re-fitting and caulking.

His mind made a mental list of everything that would likely need to be done to get this vessel seaworthy. It wouldn’t be an easy task and Sam had struggled with the simple task of turning a wrench the right way. 

“You need any help?” Bucky asked. “With the boat?”

“Oh, I got help,” Sam said. “The folks you saw earlier, we called in some favours and debts. They’re good people but… oh!” Sam seemed to realise suddenly that Bucky was actually offering his help.

“Yes, of course you can stay and help,” Sam said. “That would be great, but… don’t take this the wrong way… do you know how to fix a boat?”

“A damn sight more than you, I’m guessing.” Bucky grinned. “Of course I can fix up a boat , Sam. I’m very handy. I can fix anything. ”

“I see you’re still as big headed as ever,” Sam replied. 

“Well you see, Sam,” Bucky found he was enjoying this repartee immensely, “when I was young, fathers taught their sons how to do useful things. Fixing things. Building things. Shooting things - you know. Manly stuff.” He laughed at how ridiculous he sounded. And Sam laughed too. He loved seeing Sam laugh. His face lit up, and you could see the little gap between his front teeth which was so endearing. 

“ Manly stuff ” Sam repeated, shaking his head.  

Bucky thought back to all the hours he’d spent during his childhood years working with his father and Uncle Harry, learning how to shoot, how to build and fix things, useful life skills they would say. All the things a man needed to know to be able to look after and support his family.

“God, my dad would roll in his grave if he knew how I turned out,” Bucky muttered, thinking about how much importance his father had put on being masculine. No emotion, no affection, nothing female. 

Boys don’t cry. You want people to think you’re a girl?

I didn’t know I had a daughter and not a son

Stop mothering the boy, Winny, you’re making him soft

And potentially, according to Christina, these views Bucky had grown up with had led to all the feelings of shame Bucky felt, even now almost a hundred years later, that affected how he viewed and felt about himself. 

Bucky imagined what his father would have thought about therapy. Sharing emotions. And, god forbid, reading affirmations about loving yourself.  

“Do you really think so?” Sam asked. “Or do you think he’d just be glad that you’re okay?”

Bucky thought about this for a moment, and then shrugged. “You know, I have absolutely no idea.” 

It was a tough question to answer. Years ago, back in the time before it all went wrong, he’d have believed without hesitation that his father would have disowned him or worse for being who he was.

 And yet… his father had killed himself because he’d believed his only son had died. There must have been some love and affection there after all, hidden deep down perhaps, but there nonetheless.

Bucky felt a rare and almost alien surge of affection for his father.

“Family is so important,” Sam said. “Love trumps hate. I had the same worries about my own father but when I first came home with a boy instead of a girl he proved himself. Maybe yours would have too.”

That felt like a reach. When Bucky thought of his father, the stern and very masculine George Barnes, who prioritised strength and masculinity over emotional warmth and love, he couldn’t imagine him ever coming to any kind of acceptance over having a gay son. Perverse was how his father would have seen it. Shameful. 

He’d told Jack once I think he would shoot me when Jack had asked about what would happen if his father found him out. And he’d meant it. But George had been a product of his time, a century ago. It wasn’t fair to judge him by modern day standards.

“Speaking of family…” Sam said, waving over his sister who had remained on the dock and watching the two of them talking. 

Sam made introductions, introducing Bucky to her as ‘my friend’ which made Bucky’s heart leap. That was such a huge step in the right direction and it meant everything to him. Not Steve’s friend. Not colleague or work partner. But friend. 

The word ‘friend’ contained so much meaning. It meant someone who I actively choose to make a part of my life. 

Someone who brings value to me

Someone I enjoy being with

Someone I chose

And it thrilled him to be introduced to Sam’s sister as “my friend Bucky.”

And then they set to the task of fixing the boat. Bucky inspected every part of the boat, and instructed Sam and Sarah on what needed to be done, and any additional parts or equipment they would need. It was exhilarating being useful in a way that wasn’t to do with fighting or undertaking a mission and he threw himself into the task. He was only here for the one day, so he couldn’t do everything. But he could show Sam and his sister what they needed to do, demonstrate how to do certain tasks, and do the more difficult work, particularly that which involved heavy lifting, himself.

In all the excitement and exhilaration of focusing on the task at hand, he had completely forgotten about the briefcase bearing Sam’s gift, which remained on the dock for the rest of the day while they worked. 

It was late in the afternoon when the briefcase was finally remembered. The sun still shone brightly in the sky above them when they finally took a break from the work. Sarah went home to be with Cass and AJ, and Sam dragged a water cooler of beer onto the boat which one of his neighbours had given him and chucked a beer over to Bucky before opening one for himself. 

Sam brought the briefcase onto the boat as well. It sat on the deck between them, still locked closed. Bucky desperately wanted Sam to open it, but didn’t want to come across as pushy. They’d not spoken about anything that had happened in Latvia the whole time Bucky had been here. They’d not spoken about the fight with Walker, or the shield. Bucky knew Sam had taken the shield. But did he still have it? He had no idea. 

Sam hadn’t brought the topic up, and so Bucky hadn’t either. Bucky had resolved before coming here that he would let Sam make the first move. And it wasn’t just in the sense of progressing their relationship, if it even came to that, but in everything. If Sam didn’t bring up the topic of the shield and being Captain America, then Bucky wouldn’t bring it up either.

And opening the briefcase would bring them back towards that topic. How could it not? Sam’s wings had been smashed. He’d been literally and figuratively grounded. For all Bucky knew, over the last few days, Sam could have resolved not to fight anymore. Sam could have taken the wrecking of his wings as a sign to retire properly. To end that part of his life and move on towards a quieter time. Back to counselling war veterans, and spending quiet calm days with his family. No more fighting and saving the world. 

Opening the briefcase would mean bringing all that up, and Bucky couldn’t be angry or disappointed with Sam for his hesitation. For the first time, Bucky was starting to wonder if perhaps he’d made a grievous error, assuming Sam would want new wings, vibranium or otherwise. Maybe he’d overstepped. 

Bucky drank three beers in the time it took Sam to drink one. Upon his request Sam threw a fourth drink towards him. 

“You sure do drink a lot for someone who can’t get drunk,” Sam observed as Bucky cracked open his fourth beer. “What’s the point? I’ll tell you now, you’re not drinking this -” he waggled his nearly empty first beer bottle - “for the taste.”

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know. Habit, I guess? Hope, maybe?”

“Hope to get drunk?”

“Sure,” Bucky said. “Maybe I figure one day I’ll get the right drink, or drink the right amount and finally get drunk again. Or maybe the serum will wear off or something without me realising. That’s stupid. I don’t know.”

“It’s been eighty years, Bucky,” Sam said kindly. “I don’t think the serum is just going to wear off.”

“Regretfully, I think you’re right.” Bucky took a deep swig regardless. “But I live in hope. I miss the feeling of being drunk. Of having all your cares and worries just fly away.” He fluttered his free hand as if mimicking a bird flying away.

“When’s the last time that happened?” Sam asked.

Bucky screwed up his face in thought. And then it came to him. “Christmas 1944,” he said. “I spent two weeks with Howard getting kicked out of pubs and passing out in London alleyways during our leave.” He smiled ruefully. These weren’t really happy memories and he didn’t want to dwell on them. That Christmas had been his last chance to go home to see his family, and he’d not done so. He’d been too ashamed to be around them. And Steve went to see them for that Christmas and that was the time he wasn’t speaking to Steve. Too many secrets and lies. 

Shame again.

But Howard had been his saving grace, remaining in England with him throughout their leave period. Howard had been the best friend he could have asked for. And remembering anything to do with Howard always raised those same feelings of guilt, self-recrimination, and horror because those memories were always followed with the memory of punching Howard to death in the face with his metal arm and then strangling his wife on that rainy December night in 1991. All memories of Howard were irreparably tainted, even the ones that should be happy.

Sam, expertly reading Bucky’s internal conflict and feelings upon the mention of Howard, didn’t let the topic linger. 

“Would you get rid of the serum if you could?” Sam asked. Bucky was suddenly reminded of back in Latvia, when he’d overheard Sam and Zemo talking about the serum. Zemo asking Sam if he would take the serum if he’d had the chance, and Sam giving an immediate refusal. No hesitation.

Similarly, Bucky showed no hesitation in his response. That was an easy question.

“In a heartbeat,” he said. “To be able to fade into obscurity and live a normal life? No question.”

Steve wouldn’t have given up the serum for anything, he thought. But Steve had received the serum in vastly different circumstances, although Bucky was still pretty certain it wasn’t quite with fully informed consent but Steve had consented to it. The serum had also saved Steve from a life filled with illness and pain and, quite probably, an early death. The serum had opened doors for Steve, getting him into the army and giving him the strength to be the person he had always been on the inside. 

And Steve also bore the massive weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Steve believed himself duty bound to right all wrongs and fix all the evil in the world. If Steve walked away from the serum, walked away from Captain America, he would feel at fault for every bad thing that happened afterwards. He would feel responsible for every death that he couldn’t save. Every wrong doing. 

Bucky had never wanted the serum. He’d fought tooth and nail, and failed, to stop himself from becoming a super soldier. Bucky had spent seventy years fighting for people with goals and beliefs that were so alien to his own. He’d not fought battles that he had actively wanted to fight, he'd not fought for causes he himself believed in, and he’d killed innocents and paved the way for horrendous acts of violence and political turmoil. His experiences and Steve’s were so different, such parallel opposites of one another. 

And yet just a few days ago, Zemo had talked about him and Steve as if they were the same. Putting Bucky in the same box as Steve as someone not corrupted by the serum. It was still baffling to Bucky how Zemo came to that conclusion. How can two people, with such different experiences of the serum, with such different contexts and background surrounding it, end up the same? 

Zemo said it came down to the inner values and qualities of the individual who took the serum. And then he’d described Bucky as having qualities that Bucky would have never assigned to himself. Good qualities. Honourable qualities. Like loyalty and strength. 

Because Bucky wasn’t a bad person, was he? He’d been forced into bad actions, bad circumstances. Anyone else might have ended up the same way. Maybe even Steve…

A strange feeling rushed through him as he thought that. It was like his brain was on the precipice of understanding something very important but there was something blocking it. Like having a word on the tip of your tongue but then not being able to remember it, but in his brain instead.

He drained the dregs of his fourth beer and regretted the path this conversation had taken. 

“I guess if you could get rid of the serum,” Sam said, “the first thing you’d do is get drunk, right?”

Bucky grinned, gratified at Sam’s ability to inject humour into every conversation and taking the opportunity to get all these confusing thoughts out of his head. 

“Right on,” he said, waving his empty bottle towards Sam who took the hint and chucked him a fifth before cracking open his second. 

Sam’s attention then drew towards the briefcase sitting between them. Bucky eyed him anxiously, saying nothing, as he watched Sam put down his drink and pulled the case over towards him and ran his finger over the panel at the opening. It turned green and a loud click signalled that it was unlocked.

Bucky could feel his heart pounding harder and harder in his chest and he gripped his beer tightly as Sam slowly raised the lid of the case.

“Woah,” Sam said.

Chapter 45: Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part Two

Summary:

Wholesome family moments with the Wilson family

Please be aware that I have changed my username from Squigglyhopper and I don't want anyone to miss out on the update because of this

Notes:

The first half of this chapter features quite heavy conversation about racism and explores Sam's motivations behind giving up the shield. It was tricky to write, as I really really don't want to be mis-representing anything. I use real life examples from history as well. If I have caused any offense please please let me know in the comments and I will rewrite any part of that particular conversation.

The second half of this chapter features wholesome Wilson family fun, and it made me cry towards the end, in a good kind of way. But I am quite sappy.

Mending Bridges (and boats): Part Two

 

 

Sam shut the box closed almost as soon as he opened it, and drew in a deep breath. Bucky was now very concerned that he’d made a really significant mistake getting Sam the wings. 

“What is it?” he asked cautiously.

“You don’t do things by half measures, do you Bucky?” Sam’s voice was light, laced with humour. He re-opened the box and turned it slightly so that Bucky could see. Bucky leaned over and instantly understood Sam’s reaction.

Underneath the sleek, deceptively fragile looking powerpack, which Bucky was sure hid the wings and the drone - possibly drones (plural) - that he’d suggested, laying next to an armband console, was a new vibranium weave uniform. It bore the colours of the American flag - red, white and blue along with the unmistakable stars and stripes. 

Bucky winced. “I didn’t know she’d done that.” He reached into the box and pulled out the console. “I told her that I hoped you’d be Captain America, but I never asked for the uniform to be like that.”

He fumbled with the console. “There should be a setting to change the design, I’m sure.” The console glowed red when he tapped it with his fingers - clearly only Sam could operate it, the same way only Sam could open the box. 

He chanced a glance up at Sam, and was relieved to see that Sam didn’t appear to be at all angry. Sam took the console from Bucky, strapped it to his left arm, and began tapping away at it. The uniform changed colours, merging from one colour and design to the next before stopping on red, white and black. The colours of the power pack changed as well. Bucky tried to quell his feelings of disappointment at the colour choice - the falcon colours, not Captain America colours. It was as if Sam was telegraphing him a message. 

“That’s cool,” Sam muttered. He tapped away further and, as if by magic, a drone melted out of the powerpack and shot up into the air. A hologram appeared above the console on Sam’s arm, showing what the drone could see. Sam laughed, delighted.

“Redwing number 3! Let’s hope nothing happens to this one,” he said. The new Redwing shot through the sky so fast Bucky could barely keep up with it. 

Sam tapped the console. “Wakandan tech is truly amazing.” He lifted out the powerpack. It was so light - the case had barely weighed anything. “It’s hard to believe this has wings as well.” Bucky imagined that the wings would just materialise from the powerpack just as the drone had done. 

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the whole thing, wings, drones and all, can be completely contained inside the console,” Bucky said. “Like T’Challa’s suit - it was contained within the beads of his necklace.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “I’ll have fun playing around with this,” - he waved his left arm, bearing the console at Bucky. “I can’t wait to see everything this can do. This is… this is…”

Sam appeared genuinely at a loss for words. Bucky felt fairly certain that being at a loss for words was not something Sam experienced very often. 

“I can’t believe you got this for me.” Sam shook his head. “I’ve never had anything like this.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Bucky said hurriedly, lest he get given all the credit for Shuri’s creation. “I just asked her to consider it.”

He watched as Sam made Redwing number 3 shoot through the sky faster and faster, reaching speeds that must surely be illegal. Sam whooped with joy. 

Bucky was thinking about the vibranium weave suit. Sam had changed the design and colours. Did that mean, then, that Sam had already made up his mind to remain Falcon, and not to take up the mantle of Captain America? He’d promised himself he would support whatever decision Sam made, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bereft. He’d hoped, really hoped, that after everything that had happened, that Sam would make a different decision. 

“Do you still have the shield?” Bucky asked, before he could stop himself. 

Sam didn’t answer straightaway. He directed the new Redwing back to the box, where it melded seamlessly back into the powerpack, disappearing into the metal as if it had been absorbed. Sam then took off the console and placed it back into the box, before shutting the lid.

“I went to see Isaiah earlier this week,” Sam said. Bucky felt slightly thrown at what seemed to be Sam’s attempt to avoid Bucky’s question.

“Ok,” Bucky said slowly. “How was he?”

“He was a lot friendlier without you there,” Sam said. “No offence, but I think you put him on edge.”

Bucky took no offence to that whatsoever. “What did you speak about?” he asked.

Sam paused. “I went to give him the shield.” Sam stared out over the water. “I felt if anyone really deserved it, it would be him. If things had been different, the world more fair, he would have been Captain America. He should have been Captain America. He was a hero. Is a hero.”

Bucky nodded his agreement, but his heart was pounding so heavily in his chest so anxious he was about where this conversation was going.

“He didn’t take it,” Sam continued. He looked back down at the box, and ran a hand over the lid. “And he said I shouldn’t take it either. He said ‘they will never let a black man be Captain America’ and even if they did ‘no self respecting black man would ever want to.’”

Sam stood up very suddenly and started to pace round the deck. 

“He’s not wrong, Bucky,” Sam said. While he was trying to convince Bucky, he sounded to Bucky like he was also trying to convince himself. “What Isaiah went through, what they did - it’s unspeakable. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

“I know,” Bucky agreed quickly. 

“All he ever did was fight for his country,” Sam said. “He saved countless lives. Like Steve did. But you know what? They were the wrong lives. He saved black lives. Instead of being honoured for his bravery and heroism he was locked up, experimented on. Injected with all sorts - do you know what they injected their black test subjects with?”

Bucky shook his head. 

“ Syphilis , amongst other things.” Sam’s pacing picked up speed. Bucky’s mouth suddenly felt very dry, even though he’d just knocked back four - or was it five? - bottles of beer.

“I know things are better now, Bucky,” Sam said. “I’m not going to pretend that my experiences and the experiences of others like me are the same as they were in your day. Public lynchings. Blacks need not apply. No Irish, no blacks, no dogs.” Sam rattled off injustice after injustice. “I know what my  father, grandfather and uncles all went through. I know I got it better than them. But Bucky, it wasn’t that long ago. Not long ago at all. ”

Sam took a deep breath.

“Have you heard of Ruby Bridges?” he asked.

Bucky shook his head. 

“In 1960 she was the first black American student to attend an all-white elementary school. She was six years old, walking to school in the company of four armed US federal marshalls - for her protection. Adults swore at her. Grown adults attacked a little girl. Threw things at her. Yelled slurs at her. For daring to be a black girl on her way to school. She was six! And she’s still alive now. It was only 60 years ago. And she wasn’t the only one. I could go on and on, Bucky. And the people who did that to that little girl are still alive today.  Some are still in positions of power and influence. These horrendous things happened in living memory. And that’s what Isaiah means.”

Bucky felt at a complete loss for words. “I never realised,” he said. 

 “And if I take up the shield, if I become Captain America, I’d be representing a country that has ideals and values which haven’t represented black people. The legacy of all that horror and violence that still casts shadows to this day - I’d be giving my approval. Do you see?”

Bucky felt he could see. It was only a month ago when the police had stopped him and Sam when they were having an argument in the street outside Isaiah’s house. Nothing bad had happened, not on the surface, not obviously - it had been subtle, hard to see and easy to ignore if you weren’t looking out for it. The cops had made a beeline for Sam. Making assumptions just from looking at him, that he was the bad one. The one causing the trouble. Suspicious of him. And only stepping back when it was revealed that Sam was actually a famous renowned avenger. They’d been nothing but polite to Bucky, courteous, asking if Sam had been ‘bothering’ him. Apologising for arresting him! 

So when Sam said there were still to this day echoes of all the violence and horror that black people had faced during the Civil Rights Movement and before, Bucky could see it was true, and he understood it. 

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” he said. “I should never have been angry with you for giving up the shield. It just never occurred to me what it would have meant to you.”

“That’s not your fault, Bucky,” Sam sat down heavily next to Bucky. He suddenly looked exhausted. “I don’t expect you to think of these things and I don’t blame you at all.”

“But I should have trusted you,” Bucky said. “You told me that giving up the shield was the right thing for you to do, and I ignored you.” Completely disregarded him, actually, Bucky thought. Because Bucky had been stuck inside his own head, focused so heavily on all of his own issues, that it had never actually occurred to him that Sam would have very valid issues of his own.

“It’s not just that either,” Sam said. “Imagine if I did become Captain America…” his voice drifted off then, almost sounding wistful. “All the expectations. What if I did something wrong? Everyone would say… ‘that’s what happens when you let a black man be Captain America.’ Every mistake, every single wrong doing, no matter how small - it would cast a shadow over every black person in America. And they’d be looking out for mistakes. They’d be desperate to see me fail. When Steve messed up, which he did, it only impacted him. Not every white person - just him. But me - I screw up and it falls on everyone. It’s so much… responsibility.”

Bucky felt like the world’s worst person, for never giving Sam the chance to explain things to him before. Bucky had never even asked why Sam had given up the shield, he’d just gone on the offensive - launching into an attack on Sam for throwing away Steve’s legacy, without once giving thought to the possibility that Sam might have had valid reason to.

Sam cleared his throat. “Well then,” he said. “That’s what I spoke to Isaiah about. And I’ve come home and thought of little else since then. Over and over in my brain, playing over what Isaiah said, thinking all these thoughts about what it would mean to be Captain America, and the more I thought about it, the more I came to realise - maybe that’s exactly why I should do it.”

It took a moment for the words to register in Bucky’s mind, and he sat there, completely stunned. Sam had just given this speech stating all the very good reasons why he shouldn’t be Captain America, got Bucky completely on board with him, and then suddenly threw this massive curve ball. 

“What?” Bucky almost thought he’d misheard.

“I should be Captain America,” Sam said. “Take on the weight of all the expectations and all that history and blow it out of the water! Make change happen. Let everyone look at me and think ‘anyone could be Captain America’. If I do nothing, nothing will change. But if I do this -” Sam waved a hand in the direction of the Wakandan box. “Great things - great changes - could happen. Someone has to make that step. And I can see that it needs to be me.”

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked.

“Damn right, I’m sure,” Sam said. “In fact…” he opened up the Wakandan box again and slid the console on his wrist. “I think I need to change the colour scheme back,” he said with a cheery grin and a wink towards Bucky. 

Bucky held his breath as the suit turned back into the red, white and blue, with the stars and stripes. 

“You’ll be amazing,” he said.

“Damn straight,” Sam replied. 

Bucky was still reeling from Sam’s revelation as he and Sam packed away all the tools and equipment they’d been using on the boat. He’d come here ready to accept that Sam didn’t want to take up the shield, and he’d thought that’s where Sam’s speech was going. He felt almost giddy from the thought that Sam could soon be soaring through the sky, bearing the uniform and colours of Captain America. Steve would be so proud, he thought, if he knew. But not half as proud of Sam as Bucky was, now Bucky knew the reality of the massive responsibility that Sam was taking on his shoulders. 

“When are you flying back to Brooklyn?” Sam interrupted Bucky’s thoughts. 

“Oh,” Bucky said, “not until tomorrow evening. I got to find somewhere to go for tonight, I forgot.”

“You setting me up like that, then?” Sam sounded cheerful. 

“Not at all,” Bucky said, feeling slightly mortified that Sam felt Bucky had just assumed he could stay over with him and Sarah. “I wouldn’t presume… I wouldn’t want to make things weird for you, with your family.”

“Don’t be daft,” Sam said. “Just stay over. Sarah loves you - you’ve just spent the entire day helping us fix up our family boat. She’ll be happy to have you over. What’s your alternative anyway? Hanging around outside all night smoking cigarettes?”

He wasn’t far off the mark, Bucky thought. He’d not really had the intention of finding a hotel - he still never slept on a bed, and still avoided sleeping if at all possible - although he’d vowed to do better. But he’d not brought any cigarettes with him to meet Sam, as he knew Sam hated smoking. 

“As long as Sarah’s okay with it,” Bucky said dubiously.

“She’ll be fine. I’ll call ahead.” Sam picked up his phone. “Be warned though,” he said, “Cass and AJ are enthusiastic, curious and incredibly nosy, they will ask you a million questions about your arm.”

Bucky let out a laugh. “No problem.” He could field the questions of a couple of curious children. And he was desperate to stay with Sam. Sure he could go away and come back tomorrow, but the thought of leaving now felt wrong. He felt closer to Sam than he’d ever been - let inside Sam’s mind, been given the privilege of hearing Sam’s worries and motivations, and he felt that separating now, even for a short while, would break this closeness. 

Sam had not been joking when he said his nephews were curious and enthusiastic. Bucky had been so much at ease around Sam all day, that as they made the walk back to Sam’s family home, he’d not thought to replace his jacket or his gloves, or even roll his sleeves down. It was still daylight, but it was getting cooler now, but not cool enough to add layers. So the moment Sam introduced him to Cass and AJ - AJ the older of the two little boys - they’d both zeroed in on his arm immediately, letting out sounds of amazement.

“Can I touch it?” Cass asked.

“Where did you get it from?” AJ asked.

“Boys!” That was Sarah, coming into the hallway and beckoning Bucky to follow her into the house. “Don’t be rude!”

“It’s not rude,” Bucky reassured her. “I don’t mind.”

“You must be starving,” Sarah said. “Come on through.”

Bucky suddenly felt a twist of anxiety as he suddenly realised that he would be expected to sit at a table, as a guest, and eat a meal with other people present. And it wasn’t just any other people. These were Sam’s family - his sister. He couldn’t be rude and refuse food, but what if it made him sick? The anxiety alone would make him throw up, he was sure. 

Sam laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and ushered Bucky into a chair, and sat down next to him. Sarah and the boys started to bring in plates and bowls of food. Sarah placed an empty plate in front of Bucky. 

“It’s ‘help yourself’ night,” she said breezily. “Just pick and choose what you want. Cass! Stop throwing peas at your brother, don’t make me send you to your room again !” 

There was a sound of instant denial. “He started it!”

“I don’t care who started it. I’m finishing it. What do you want to eat?”

Bucky stared at his plate feeling slightly stunned. He glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye feeling slightly suspicious. Sam had ‘called ahead’ to let Sarah know they were coming. Had he told Sarah that Bucky found eating problematic and suggested a buffet style meal for that purpose? 

And then he realised the relief he was feeling. He’d been so stressed and anxious when Sarah mentioned ‘food’ and now the cause of that stress had been removed significantly. He suddenly felt a surge of gratitude and fondness towards Sam, for thinking ahead without making it obvious, or making Bucky feel like a problem. 

And Sarah didn’t appear to be paying him any attention at all, focused on stopping the boys from launching vegetables at each other and trying to get them to eat it instead. 

Bucky served himself some vegetables and rice. He avoided everything else. He still didn’t trust himself entirely with meat. Sam poured him a glass of water. 

“No alcohol,” Sam mouthed at him, with a gesture towards the boys. Bucky nodded his understanding. 

“Mr Bucky?” Cass asked, very politely. “What does your arm do?”

Sarah shot her youngest son a look, and he fell silent. 

“It’s really okay,” Bucky reassured her. She gestured at Cass that he could continue. Bucky could see Sam out of the corner of his eye watching the interaction with interest.

“Can it turn into things?” AJ asked excitedly. 

“No, it can’t,” Bucky said. “What do you think it should change into?”

“Anything!” AJ said. “Like a hammer or a corkscrew! Or wings - like Uncle Sam!”

Sam patted his nephew on the back,

“I’d change it into a gun!” Cass shouted, not wanting to be outdone by his older brother. He then pointed his forefinger at AJ and started making ‘pew-pew’ noises.

“Less noise, more eating!” Sarah instructed them. 

AJ shoved a large forkful of chicken into his mouth.

“No it can’t do that,” Bucky told Cass. The little boy’s brow furrowed as he considered it.

“Well, what can it do?” Cass asked.

“Nothing very much,” Bucky said. “It’s just an arm.”

“Oh.” Cass looked disappointed. 

“Why do you have a metal arm?” AJ asked.

“Don’t feel you have to answer that,” Sarah told Bucky, “unless you’re happy to.”

Bucky suddenly realised he hadn’t eaten anything. He shoved some rice into his mouth and chewed it slowly, considering how to answer the question in a way that would be appropriate for young children.

“I had an accident,” Bucky said carefully.

“What kind of accident?” AJ asked immediately. 

“I fell over,” Bucky said. 

“You tripped?” AJ’s eyes were round like saucers.

“Wow…” Cass said. 

Bucky had been expecting follow up questions, but the answer appeared to satisfy both of the boys for they immediately changed tack.

“Could you pick me up with it?” Cass asked.

“I could… probably won’t though,” Bucky said, casting a glance at Sam who looked like he was enjoying himself enormously. 

“What about me?” AJ asked.

“I could lift your Uncle Sam,” Bucky said.

“Wow,” both boys said in unison. 

“He’s really heavy,” AJ said with conviction.

“Hey,” Sam cut in. “That’s just… not true. It’s all muscle.” He winked at Bucky, who immediately felt his face flair red despite himself, and he took a long swig of water to try to hide it.

“I think we should talk about something else now, boys,” Sarah said. “Stop pestering our guest. Why don’t you tell your Uncle Sam who you saw today?”

AJ immediately launched into a disjointed, difficult to follow story about some school friend and a trip to the park, which for some reason involved a spaceship and a flying gorilla. Bucky appreciated the focus being off him. It had been a very long time since he’d been around children, in a fun, normal kind of environment, and he felt a little exhausted. 

His explanation appeared to be enough to satisfy Cass and AJ’s curiosity, or maybe the novelty of his metal arm had worn off, especially as they’d both seemed so disappointed that it didn’t actually do anything fun or exciting. 

Maybe Bucky should ask the Wakandans for an upgrade, if he ever got back into their good graces that is. 

He spent the rest of the meal nibbling at the food on his plate and staring at Sam out of the corner of his eye, trying not to be obvious about it. Sam’s nephews obviously adored him. They hero-worshipped him. Imagine their faces when they saw Sam on television one day as Captain America! It suddenly hit Bucky what Sam meant earlier when he said ‘Let everyone look at me and think ‘anyone could be Captain America’ . His nephews, and other children looking up at Sam and thinking ‘that could be me’.

He managed to finish all the food on his plate by the time everyone else had finished. Sarah stood up and started to clear up the dishes. Bucky got to his feet also, and started to gather up the plates, meaning to help Sarah tidy up.

Sarah shot him a stern expression. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “You’re our guest, and I won’t have a guest clearing up after dinner.”

“But…” Bucky began. 

But clearly Sarah wasn’t going to tolerate any argument. “Boys,” she said, getting the attention of her two sons. “You’re off clearing up duty this evening. Why don’t you go outside with Bucky and kick a ball around?”

It was a clear attempt to get rid of him, and prevent him from insisting on helping. The boys immediately swarmed Bucky, Cass grabbing his metal arm and pulling him away from the table. “I’m the best at soccer in my class,” Cass said, as he dragged Bucky’s arm. “I’m even better than AJ.”

“No you’re not!” AJ shouted back. “You just think that because the one time I got a bug in my eye and couldn’t see the ball.”

Sam laughed at Bucky’s predicament, Bucky obviously wanting to stay but being physically dragged from the room by two boys clearly desperate to be away from clearing up duty.

“You’re staying with me,” Sarah told her brother, “you can help.”

“Oh, I can, can I?” Sam teased. “Whatever happened to ‘you do such a bad job I’ll never ask you to help agan’” He affected a high pitch tone, Sarah tossed a cloth at him.

“Just for that,” she said, “you can do the washing up.”

Sarah vanished into the kitchen carrying a pile of dirty dishes. Sam sighed and began gathering up the other plates.

“You’re lucky,” he told Bucky, “getting out of clearing up. I never get out of clearing up.”

“Sam,” Bucky said. He suddenly felt very awkward and he was very aware that Cass and AJ were still there, literally hanging onto him and his every word. 

“Go ahead,” Bucky told them, “get a ball ready, and I’ll join you.”

Both boys rushed out of the room whooping loudly. Bucky could hear the front door slam. 

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, noting that Bucky had deliberately sent the boys out so they could be alone, and immediately his voice became serious. Concerned.

“It’s just…” Bucky didn’t really know how to say what was on his mind. He felt unbelievably overwhelmed. He could barely remember the last time he’d been part of a family dinner. Been around children, the fun and levity of a family at gently teasing one another, the excitement and innocent curiosity of children. It was so normal. So wholesome. And now…

“Your sister knows who I am, doesn’t she?” Bucky asked awkwardly. 

“Of course.” Sam looked perplexed, trying to figure out why Bucky was asking this. 

“I mean she really knows who I am?” Bucky pressed. “All of it?”

“Yes,” Sam said slowly. “Why?”

“And she’s okay with… with…” Bucky couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. She’s okay with a former mass murdering assassin playing alone with her children? Instead, he gestured towards the door through which Cass and AJ had departed.

Sam’s expression became one of dawning comprehension, and he looked then at Bucky with such understanding and kindness that Bucky genuinely struggled to hold back tears.

“Of course she’s okay for you to play with the boys,” Sam said, reaching out to take the plates off him, which Bucky realised he was still holding. 

“You go ahead,” Sam said. “I’ve got this.”

Bucky felt his eyes water as he watched Sam leave the room to join his sister in the kitchen. He’d never imagined something like this could ever have been possible. To be so trusted. So easily accepted. He swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat and he turned to follow the boys out into the garden.

As he exited the house a blurr flew towards him and he reached out automatically to catch the ball that one of the boys had just hurled towards him.

“Great catch!” AJ shouted admiringly. “Pass it over to me! Don’t let Cass get it!”

“Hey!” Cass yelled at his brother. “It’s my ball. Uncle Sam bought it for me.”

Bucky felt the weight of the ball in his fingertips, and he stood there just holding it, watching the two boys squabble over whose ball it was. The sun was setting now, a cool orange light gradually sinking below the horizon and he felt so much at peace, even with the loud shouts of Sam’s nephews. 

When was the last time he’d played catch with children? He thought. Probably with his younger sisters, when they were very small. He remembered throwing the ball so carefully and deliberately so that little Becca could catch it - she’d lunge forward, both arms coming forward simultaneously to catch the ball and pin it to her chest. He always had to aim carefully to make sure she was able to grab it. And the look on her little face when she managed it - beaming at him, so proud of herself for catching the ball all by herself. 

He looked up towards the sun, and suddenly felt so free. There were occasional moments when it would really come back to him in a meaningful way that he was, in fact, free. Anything could trigger it, but it was usually something small and innocuous. Something that anyone would take for granted. A walk in the evening, feeling a cool breeze on his skin. Enjoying an extra long hot shower in the Winter. Moments where it just hit him how he could do these things now. What it meant to be in control of his own body and mind. To move the way he wanted to. To think the way he wanted to. To be aware of himself in a way he’d hadn’t been for seventy years. 

This was one of those moments. He stared up at the setting sun and remembered a time when all he could see of the sun was a tiny glimmer through a barred window in a Siberian cell, after five years underground without any natural light. And now here it was. Always there for him. Never again to be restricted. And he could be here, playing with children having the trust of a mother, who knew his past, to be alone with her children. 

It felt… he felt… exhilarated. Touched beyond measure. And so grateful to be here right now, at this moment. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone else rather than with Sam and his family, right here and right now. 

“Throw the ball!” 

“No! Throw it to me!”

He suddenly realised his eyes were closed, and he’d been standing there for goodness knows how long, just savouring the moment. The boys were jumping up and down waving their arms in the air, both of them clamouring for him to throw the ball to them.

Bucky made as if to throw the ball towards Cass, but stopped it at the last moment. Cass ran forward to catch it and then realised that Bucky never threw the ball. AJ laughed, and after a moment Cass joined in and then started hopping up and down again begging Bucky to throw him the ball ‘properly this time’. 

Bucky carefully threw the ball for Cass to catch, who immediately hurled it towards AJ, but misjudged and the ball rolled at speed away from them. Both boys chased after it, fighting over who would get it first.

Bucky suddenly realised he was smiling. A real smile. This place was magical, special. He wished he could stay here forever. 

Chapter 46: Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part Three

Notes:

I will be making my other stories available for guest users to read again soon I promise, within the next couple of weeks, probably when I update this story again.

Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part Three

 

Bucky, Cass and AJ played together for about 20 minutes before Cass, puffing and panting from all the exertion, tapped Bucky gently on the arm.

“Mr Bucky?” he asked.

“You don’t have to call me that, Cass,” Bucky told him. “Just Bucky is fine.”

Cass frowned. “Mum said…”

AJ rushed to speak over him. “Mum said we must always call adults Mr or Mrs.” He thought for a moment. “Or Miss.”

Far be it for Bucky to overrule Sarah’s parenting. “All right then. Mr Bucky will do just fine.”

“Do you think mum and Uncle Sam are still clearing up?” Cass looked anxious. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky replied. “Probably. Why?”

“I’m really thirsty.” Cass’ eyes darted towards the front door. “But…”

He trailed off. Bucky assumed Cass was too well brought up to say that he was worried he would get roped into doing chores if he went back into the house. Bucky told Cass not to worry, he would go in himself and get him a drink. AJ chimed in that he would also like a drink as well, please. 

Bucky headed into the house and made his way towards the kitchen, where he could hear Sam and Sarah clattering around loudly, and talking to each other.

“You don't need to thank me, Sam,” Sarah said. “This is just as much your house as ours. You’re always welcome here. You don’t even need to ask. You, and any of your friends. Though it’s been a while since you brought someone here.”

Sam murmured something too quiet for Bucky to hear. Bucky was about to enter the kitchen but he paused when he heard his own name.

“Speaking of friends,” Sarah said, “tell me about Bucky. What’s the situation with him?” 

He didn’t mean to hang back and carry on listening, but he couldn’t help himself. It was like his legs were glued to the floor. They hadn’t realised he had entered the house, and were carrying on their conversation.  It wasn’t even like he’d snuck into the house - he’d shut the front door loudly behind him when he’d entered, they just hadn’t noticed.

“What situation?” Sam asked. 

“Well…” Sarah said. “It’s the first time you’ve brought anyone here in years. And he’s cute. Polite. Friendly. What’s going on between you two?”

“Nothing is going on, Sarah.” Sam sounded weary, as if this was a conversation he’d had many times. 

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because you might need to tell him that. He’s completely hung up on you, do you know that?”

Bucky took a step back, his heart pounding in his chest. He shouldn’t be listening to this. But he couldn’t go in there now. His eyes flickered back towards the front door, but if he went out without the drinks for the boys, they would want to know why. And then they might come in and tell Sarah and Sam that Bucky had been in the house while they were talking, and then they would know he’d been listening. What on Earth should he do?

“Don’t be silly, Sarah.” He heard Sam reply.

“Silly!” Sarah exclaimed. “That man spent the entire meal staring at you. The only time he looked away was when he thought you’d notice. He looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky. He’s smitten.”

Bucky felt his face redden. Was he really so obvious ? That was beyond embarrassing. Sarah had only known him for less than a day.

“Look, I know that,” Sam said.

And Sam of course. Of course Sam had noticed. How could he not? Bucky was constantly acting like a complete idiot around Sam. He rested his forehead on the wall and silently cursed himself.

“And?” Sarah said.

“And nothing,” Sam said. “It’s complicated.”

Something clattered loudly. Bucky imagined it was Sarah thumping something down in exasperation.

“It’s always complicated ,” she said. “Every time. You bring home someone really nice to meet me and the boys and it never goes anywhere because it’s complicated. You are allowed to move on, you know. It’s been years since Riley -”

“-it’s not complicated because of Riley, okay?” Sam said firmly. He wasn’t angry, but his tone showed clearly that he wasn’t willing to brook any argument to this. “There’s other reasons.”

“Oh,” Sarah said. There was a short silence. “Does it need to be so complicated?”

God, that was almost exactly what Yori had told Bucky, months ago, when Bucky had confessed to Yori that he had feelings for someone. Take the leap. 

Sam didn’t answer Sarah’s question. Or if he did, it was covered by the noise of washing up. 

“Well then,” Sarah said. “I guess that answers my next question. If you’re not together then Bucky will have the guest room, and you can spend the night on the couch.”

“Oh no, Sarah,” Sam said quickly. “That’s not…”

“I won’t have a guest in my home sleeping on the couch,” Sarah interrupted sharply. “If you’re not sharing, he’ll have the bedroom.”

“Believe me,” Sam said, “Bucky would far rather…”

Bucky presumed Sam was about to say Bucky would far rather have the couch than the bed but Sam didn’t get to finish the sentence as AJ blew into the house like a whirlwind, rushing past Bucky, into the kitchen.

“Mom!” AJ announced, as he passed Bucky. “Cass is thirsty. Can we have a drink please?”

Bucky backed quickly out of the front door which AJ had left open. Cass was just outside, throwing the ball into the air and catching it. 

Bucky rested against the wall of the house, by the door, and took a deep breath. He felt shaky. He hoped, really hoped, that AJ wouldn’t say anything to Sarah and Sam about Bucky lingering in the hallway outside the kitchen. He didn’t know whether he should go back in and admit to Sam that he’d overheard their conversation, or whether it would be best to just pretend nothing had happened. He’d not intended to eavesdrop. It was just bad luck that he’d chosen that moment to come into the house while they were talking about him, and then he didn’t know what to do. 

AJ came back out to join them a few minutes later, carrying two bottles of water, one of which he passed to Cass. Neither child appeared to notice that anything was wrong, and Bucky figured he was probably overthinking this and made a concerted effort to continue to appear normal as the boys resumed their play.

Sam came out to join them after a little while, and he appeared normal too. Maybe AJ hadn’t mentioned anything. Cass and AJ clearly adored Sam - they were all over him, vying for his attention and asking him question after question about ‘Falcon’ and asking him to pick them up and make them ‘fly’ through the air like they had wings too.

The sky was growing dark now, and it wasn’t long before Sarah came out to tell the boys it was time for bed. Both boys immediately offered objections, but were mollified when Sam said he would tell them a Falcon story after they’d brushed their teeth and got ready for bed. 

Sam vanished into the house with the boys, and Sarah brought Bucky out a mug of coffee, before joining Sam with the boys’ bedtime routine. Bucky avoided eye contact with Sarah, feeling like the world’s worst person for eavesdropping on her private conversation with Sam when she’d been nothing but nice to him. 

Bucky remained outside the house, staring up at the moon and stars. You could see the night sky so clearly here, in a way you never could in Brooklyn. The stars shone so brightly, unimpeded by the light pollution of the city. And it was so quiet as well. No sounds of traffic, or people singing and shouting in the streets. Just silence, apart from the sounds of nature. And the air was so fresh and clear. It was absolutely beautiful, and so peaceful.

Why on Earth had he said he wanted to return to Brooklyn? It wasn’t the first time he’d questioned the decision but he really wished now that he’d spent longer thinking about it. He’d thought it would be like returning home, but he very quickly realised that it was nothing like home. It was too different from how he’d remembered. And it was also too noisy, too busy. 

Somewhere like this would be far better. Out in the countryside. Rural. Far off the beaten track. No other people close by. Secluded. Quiet. 

He’d done his best to make his apartment a home for him. He’d tried to make it nice over the last few months. Buying more furniture and displaying his books and other items that the Smithsonian had returned to him. But it didn’t feel like home. It still felt rough. Awkward. Alien. 

He wondered idly whether he should talk to Christina about the possibility of moving somewhere else. But he imagined it would be too complicated right now. He was still subject to the terms and conditions of his pardon. Everything had been arranged and organised for him to be in Brooklyn. There were protocols in place and everything had been carefully planned. If he moved, he’d probably need a new therapist and the thought of having to get used to someone new after months and months of learning to work with Christina was horrifying. 

Maybe after he was signed off from therapy, he could think about moving to somewhere like this. After the conditions of his pardon were met, and the government was happy with him. Maybe he could just move away, find his peace, leave everything unpleasant behind him. And… And…

Maybe Sam could be there too. 

Maybe…

Bucky recalled what Sam had said to Sarah in the kitchen.

It’s complicated

He’d not denied Sarah’s observations. He’d not said, I’m not interested in Bucky like that. He just said it was complicated. 

What did that mean? Did that mean - and Bucky could feel his heartbeat pick up speed at the thought - that Sam also had feelings for Bucky? That Bucky’s feelings weren’t unrequited after all? And it would make sense for Sam to say it was complicated, because Bucky hadn’t exactly been excelling himself with Sam lately. Bucky had to admit to himself that he was a hot mess, and he could understand Sam having misgivings about it. But if Sam shared Bucky’s feelings for him, then that meant that there was a chance, surely? As long as Bucky did things right, and stopped messing up, and could show Sam that he was different. 

“You okay?”

Bucky actually jumped. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he’d not noticed that Sam had joined him. His coffee, now cold, spilled on his hand. 

“Wow,” Sam said. “I didn’t think it would be possible to sneak up on you.”

Bucky wiped the coffee off his hand and put his mug down on the ground. He needed to admit to Sam that he’d heard the conversation between him and Sarah. It would hang over him like the plague if he didn’t. 

“Cass and AJ really like you,” Sam said. “They asked me if I had any Falcon stories that included you. You’re a big hit.”

“Really?” Bucky asked. “I thought I was an incredible disappointment because my arm doesn’t do anything exciting. I was thinking of asking the Wakandans for an upgrade.”

Sam laughed. “If it can’t turn into a bazooka what’s the point, right?”

Bucky, despite his steadily growing anxiety, was able to muster a small smile. “Or a flame thrower.”

“They’re good kids,” Sam said. “It’s been hard for them, without a dad. And then I vanished for five years.”

“They’re really great,” Bucky agreed. “Very polite.”

“They have their moments,” Sam said. 

There was a small pause, and Bucky was considering bringing up the conversation in the kitchen when Sam suddenly said, “I have something to show you, wait here.”

Sam vanished back into the house, just for a moment, before returning with the large oval case which Bucky knew contained the shield. Sam placed it on the ground next to him, and unzipped the top of the bag. 

“Thought you might like to see it again,” Sam said, as he pulled down the sides of the bag to reveal the familiar smooth curved metal. The last time he'd seen it, it had been covered in blood. Now it was clean, sparkling and bright.

Bucky knelt down next to the bag and pressed a hand to the surface of the shield. He couldn’t speak for the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. 

Here it was, at last, in the right hands. With the right person, who would do right by it. 

Bucky swallowed and found his voice. “I’m so glad that you’re keeping it. I know you’ll be brilliant, you’ll do right by Steve and his legacy. You’ll -” he cut himself off as a shadow seemed to fall over Sam’s face.

He’d noticed this about Sam over the last few weeks - the way Sam reacted when Bucky mentioned Steve in this kind of context. Talking about Steve in general was fine, in fact Sam seemed to crave conversation about Steve. But whenever Bucky brought up Steve as some kind of comparison to Sam, always positively, Sam never responded well to it. It seemed odd to Bucky, because being compared favourably to Steve was something he would welcome, and he couldn’t wrap his head around why Sam would react so differently. 

“I know you’ll be brilliant,” Bucky finished, opting to avoid any further mention of Steve. 

“The boys will be so excited when they find out,” Sam said. “They already tell everyone about how Uncle Sam is an Avenger. Imagine how they’ll be when Uncle Sam is Captain America.”

Sam knelt down and zipped the bag back up. 

“I want to ask your opinion about something,” Sam said. He sat down on the grass next to Bucky, the shield between them. 

“I’m trying to think of how I can make things right by Isaiah,” Sam continued. “He deserves better than what he’s got. He should feel safe. Free. No longer hidden, no longer afraid. And I want to do that for him. I want to show him that he doesn’t need to be in hiding any more. I want to get him the recognition he deserves, as a hero, and I could do it.”

“But what’s stopping you?” Bucky asked. 

“I’m not sure it’s what Isaiah would want,” Sam said. “And I’m worried that in trying to help him, I might make things worse for him. There’s still people out there who would want to hurt him, use his family against him. And if I bring him to the limelight, it could put them all in danger.”

Sam was right, Bucky thought. It wasn’t all that long ago, comparatively, that Isaiah had been kept imprisoned, experimented upon and tortured. And the people who did that to him, a lot of them would still be alive, out in the world somewhere. Look at Nagel - he was dead now, but he’d experimented on Bucky in the 90s and until recently was still going strong - still doing the same kind of research, the same kind of work. There must be loads of people still out there who’d been complicit in Isaiah’s treatment. 

The people who’d treated Isaiah badly had been his own government. They hadn’t been Hydra specifically, but there’d been a lot of overlap. And Bucky knew the government continued to be filled with people who he knew had been involved with Hydra in some way. And those people would continue to pose a permanent risk to Isaiah as long as they remained in positions of influence and power. 

Maybe there was something he could do about that.

“Maybe you should just talk to him about it?” Bucky suggested. “Ask him his feelings about bringing him into the public awareness. If he has worries, you could then explore them with him and see if you can address them.”

That sounded like something Christina would say. He’d been in therapy for far too long. 

Sam appeared to be seriously considering Bucky’s suggestion. “I’d never do anything without Isaiah being okay with it. You’re right, I should talk to him. Reassure him. I just don’t want to accidentally do the wrong thing for him, by trying to do the right thing.”

“I understand completely,” Bucky said, “I’ve got a similar situation, actually.”

He realised before he could stop himself that he was about to talk about Yori. He’d never mentioned Yori to anyone. To this day Christina still didn’t know that he’d befriended the man whose son he’d murdered over two decades ago. She knew he’d met Yori - he told her that, as that was what had led to him being in hospital after hacking at himself with a knife. But he’d never told her any more than that. As far as she knew, he didn’t even know the man’s name. She didn’t know about all the messages between him and Yori, all the meet ups. She didn’t know anything about Bucky’s guilt and desire to make things right by Yori, without knowing how, and his worries that he would just make things worse.

It was all so comparable to how Sam was describing his desire to make things right by Isaiah that he couldn’t stop himself from sharing his own similar experience.

“I’ve been seeing someone…” Bucky began. And then he stopped as Sam’s eyes brow shot up. Seeing someone generally meant in a romantic context, Bucky reminded himself.

“Not like that,” he hurriedly added. “I just met someone…” that didn’t sound much better. 

“This guy, Yori. He’s Japanese and he’s 87 years old. He’d got himself a head injury and I helped him sort it out, a few months ago.” Bucky quickly summarised his meeting with Yori, the argument with the neighbour, and taking the man up to his apartment to help him out.

He told Sam about seeing the shrine to Yori’s son, the dreadful realisation Bucky had had upon recognising the young man in the photograph, and the knowledge that he was the one who’d killed Yori’s son.

He told Sam all the things he should have told Christina from the very beginning. That he remained in contact with Yori, that he met up with Yori and had meals with him. It all came out of him in a massive rush, almost like he was at confession. He did not, however, tell Sam that the day he met Yori was the day Sam had rung him to speak about the shield, the day that had resulted in him hacking at himself so ferociously with a knife that he had ended up in hospital. 

“I keep trying to work out what the best thing to do is,” Bucky said. “Like you with Isaiah, I suppose. I don’t know whether I should tell Yori, or just stop seeing him completely. Or if there’s something else I should do. And I’m worried that whatever I choose, it will be the wrong thing and I’ll just end up hurting him.”

Sam listened to all of this in thoughtful silence, showing no emotion and giving nothing away which would show his own feelings on the matter.

“Did you speak to Dr Raynor about all of this?” Sam asked, when Bucky was finished. 

Bucky felt something in his stomach drop. “She knows I met Yori,” he said truthfully. “I told her about that.”

Sam nodded. Bucky had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d not lied to Sam, but he’d let Sam make the assumption that Christina was aware of the entire situation with Yori. Bucky was too afraid to admit to Sam that he’d not told Christina the whole truth about Yori, and didn't want to say out loud to Sam that he kept secrets from his therapist. He didn’t want Sam to feel obliged to ring Christina to tell her about it. It would put them back months if Sam did that. Gone were the days when Sam would have to ring Christina to tell him about something that worried him about Bucky. The last thing he wanted now was to turn the clock back.

He knew it was his own fault. He should have been transparent about Yori with Christina from the start. But he’d got himself into a situation that he had no idea how to extricate himself from. And the longer it went on, the harder it had become to admit that he’d got himself caught in the middle of a really problematic situation. 

And now, he’d drawn Sam into the deceit as well. 

So much for proving to Sam that he had changed, that things were different now. 

“That sounds very much like something you need to work on in therapy,” Sam said. “I don’t want to intrude on that.”

“Oh I wasn’t expecting advice,” Bucky said quickly. “I was just saying that I know what it feels like, to want to do the right thing for someone, but not knowing how, or if you’ll make things worse.”

He felt absolutely dreadful. All the joy he’d felt earlier from the whole day had completely disappeared. The bonding between him and Sam as they’d worked together on the boat, the meal with Sam’s family, the games with the boys. It all felt so far in the distant past now. In the space of just a couple of hours everything had turned on its head. He’d eavesdropped on Sam’s private conversation with his sister and kept quiet about it, and now he was lying to Sam by omission. 

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This was supposed to be the weekend of showing Sam that he had changed, that things were going to be better. To perhaps further their relationship. And as usual he’d made a real mess of it. 

No wonder Sam told his sister that things were complicated.  

Bucky let out a sigh. He had to find a way to fix this. He couldn’t let the weekend end on deceit and lies. 

“Oh!” Sam said, as if suddenly just recalling something. “Sarah got a bee in her bonnet about you sleeping in the guest room… something about not wanting a guest to sleep on the couch.”

Bucky froze at the mention of the conversation Sam had had with Sarah earlier that he’d overheard. 

“Ok…” he said carefully. He tried to look calm on the outside, nonchalant, but inside his brain was buzzing and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He recognised these signs.  Along with the clammy palms, the feeling of nausea, the dizziness. He could feel himself drawing closer and closer to a panic and he would not allow that to happen in front of Sam. 

“I assumed you’d prefer the couch,” Sam said, “so I persuaded her to let it drop. You okay with that?”

“Yeah, of course,” Bucky said. His mind was a blur, trying to work out if Sam was hinting that he knew Bucky had been listening in. Sam wouldn’t do that though. Sam wouldn’t play games, he’d just come out with it. Bucky concentrated on the feeling of the grass running through his finger tips, and tried to ground himself without Sam noticing.

“I figured you’d probably just be up all night, or you’d end up sleeping on the floor,” Sam said, “and that you’d actually sleep better on the couch.”

“You’re right,” Bucky said. Responses came out of him like he was on autopilot. Sam was looking at him oddly. Bucky willed himself to try and appear normal. 

“Are you okay?” Sam asked. “You look really… weirded out. Stressed.”

Bucky took a deep breath. He had to maintain his composure because if he didn’t he felt he was seconds away from freaking out, and he really really did not want this weekend ruined because of a panic attack.

“I’m just… really tired. It’s… been a bit overwhelming…” Bucky waved a hand in the general direction of Sam’s house. “All this… God! Not in a bad way.” He suddenly realised what that must have sounded like. “I’ve loved being here, I promise. I don’t mean…”

In a moment he was going to start crying, he could feel it. And if that happened he knew he’d lose all control over himself, and he’d talk and talk, and share too much and come across as crazy Bucky to Sam and that’s the last thing he wanted to happen. The image of himself in Madripoor, losing it with Sam, flashed in his mind’s eye.

“I know,” Sam said. “I know it’s been a lot for you, this evening. I’m sorry, I should have noticed, given you some space to be alone for a bit.”

Sam’s kindness was heartbreaking, and Bucky didn’t feel at all deserving of it. Not to mention how annoyed he felt with himself for not being able to manage one evening with Sam’s family like a normal person without fucking everything up.

“I think the best thing,” Sam said, “is for us to all go to bed and get some rest, before we overthink things, and say things that we might regret.” 

Bucky bit his bottom lip to stop himself from blurting out something he was certain he would regret. Sam was right. Bucky’s emotions were all over the place right now and he was teething on the edge of something overwhelming, and the best thing would be to just be alone and sort his head out. Tomorrow, when he had some distance from the evening’s events, he would feel more in control of himself and in a better place mentally to think things through and make the right decisions.

Bucky nodded.

“I’ll give you a quick tour.” Sam pulled himself to his feet and offered a hand to help Bucky up. Bucky didn’t need a hand to get up, but he took Sam’s hand anyway and hoped that Sam didn’t notice how clammy his own was.  Normally, he’d feel a slight thrill at having any physical contact with Sam, but right now he felt too overwhelmed to notice. “Show you the bathrooms and such. Sarah’s made the couch up for you, and you can help yourself to food and drink if you want, overnight.”

A short while later Sam bid Bucky goodnight, and the house fell into silence. Bucky changed into comfy clothes to sleep in and settled himself on Sarah’s very comfortable sofa, then pulled out the notebook Christina had given him the day before. 

Now he was alone he felt calmer, relaxed, and in a better place mentally to work through the evening’s events and his feelings. 

It was the eavesdropping that put his emotions on edge, he realised. Everything had been fine until then. But he’d got himself caught in a situation he didn’t know how to get out of, and from there everything had tumbled. He’d felt guilty, worried that Sam and Sarah knew he’d been eavesdropping but were too polite to bring it up. Worried about how this would change Sarah’s view of him. Worried about keeping things from Sam again. And that had put him in a weird place emotionally, giving him less control over himself, oversharing with Sam about Yori and then drawing Sam into something that he’d kept from everyone else. 

Bucky opened the notebook to the first page, and hovered his pen over the paper for a moment while he thought through what he needed to do.

Christina called it a critical incident analysis. Something you do after an incident to better understand and explore why it happened, pinpointing moments where you could have done something differently, and then taking your learning from it, so that if such a situation happened again you would be better able to manage it. Breaking it down into bullet points, writing down your feelings, your emotional responses, and noting moments where you could have done something differently. Exploring where your feelings came from, and what action led to what feeling. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. Sometimes things go wrong because of events that happened months, even years ago. Things such as relational dynamics, past traumas and such were all things to bear in mind when working on understanding why something happened the way it did. 

In this case, he was a guest visiting the family home of someone he very much wanted to impress. And that put pressure on him as well. He’d felt overwhelmed by Sarah’s acceptance of him, her being content with him playing alone with her children. All of those feelings fed into his later feelings of guilt and caused him to be deceitful towards Sam. 

He began to write, leaving nothing out. His feelings about Sam, about the evening, how touched he’d felt when Sarah had let him be alone with her children. The anxiety, the guilt, the lying by omission and feeling overwhelmed. 

It was the first time he’d ever engaged in this activity by himself, without Christina firstly telling him to do it, and then, leading him through it excruciatingly bit by painful bit. But he wanted to do this now in a way he’d never done before. Because he knew now that he needed to understand himself better. He needed to understand why he did the things he did, why he felt the feelings he did, and where his reactions stemmed from. He went through page after page scribbling notes, mentally summoning Christina trying to think of what she would say, the sort of questions she would ask.

And then, when he was done, he wrote in large letters at the bottom of a page. 

Action: Talk to Sam tomorrow

 

He took a deep breath. That had been absolutely exhausting. His phone told him that it was past midnight and he felt shattered but he wasn’t done yet. There was more on his mind that he wanted to deal with right now and he didn’t want to put any of it off. 

Isaiah Bradley. Sam wanted to give Isaiah the recognition he deserved but there was still a lot of danger out there for Isaiah and this was something Bucky could help with.

Bucky slid the inset listing Christina’s affirmations into his current page as a bookmark. The words I am worthy of care jumped out at him. If he thought it enough, maybe one day he could believe it. He then closed the notebook, flipped it over, and opened it from the back page. 

Then he started a list of names. Everyone he could think of that had ever had anything to do with Hydra, either directly or on the periphery that he knew might still be out there. 

When he’d been in the Raft he’d been asked questions about Hydra, and he’d given all the names that he could think of at the time. But his memory at that time was still shaky and this affected his ability to name names and be helpful. They showed him photographs of people they suspected but he struggled with recognising faces. He might recall surnames, but not first names - or vice-versa, or he’d get the person right but the decade of their involvement wrong, meaning that his information wasn’t reliable. Not the case now. 

Over the last few months he’d seen people on the news; senators, government officials and the like - people who he recognised. He’d not done anything about them before, because it just genuinely hadn’t occurred to him that he could do so. He got out his phone and started googling names. Person after person added to the list. Some were in their 80s or 90s and retired, some were young enough to be in their late 30s / early 40s. Some were mothers, fathers, grandparents - he didn’t discriminate - he wrote them all down. Any one of them could be a risk to Isaiah Bradley and, potentially, Bucky himself. He even added Brock Rumlow to the list even though he knew the government already knew about him and was keeping an eye on him. He wasn’t leaving out a single person.

Then, when he was done with that, he moved on to locations. Months ago, after he’d broken into that abandoned Hydra facility and been told off by Christina for it, he’d been asked to compile a list of every Hydra base in the country. He’d completed the task, but he’d not included everywhere he knew. He left some out. At the time he’d done that for his own safety and protection. He didn’t feel safe, he thought his pardon could be snatched away from him at any moment and he’d be on the run again. He wanted to leave options open to him. He didn’t feel that same way anymore, he felt safe now in his freedom. 

There’d be information at these Hydra bases, he thought. Paper files dating back decades. Cassettes, floppy disks, CDs all full of notes, research, names. All of it would be useful to the authorities in chasing down anyone Bucky might have forgotten to add to his list. 

Hydra might not technically exist anymore, but it always somehow found the ability to renew itself. It merged, charged forms, shifted into something else. Writing all these names and places down felt to Bucky like he was wielding a final death blow to Hydra. Removing all their left over people, all their left over secrets and hide-outs. He was protecting Isaiah, but it also felt like he was avenging himself in a strange way.

After including all the locations in America, he then pulled out his phone and opened up Google Maps, and used it to work out Hydra locations worldwide. He knew Steve and the Avengers had found and destroyed some, years ago, but he was certain they wouldn’t have found them all. Bucky left nothing to chance and included every single detail he could think of. 

Then, when he was done, he used his phone to take photographs of the pages he’d just filled out. Tomorrow, or on Monday, he’d send them over to Christina to pass on and, also, to Sam. Sam could maybe take the list of names to Isaiah and see if there was any overlap with people Isaiah recognised. This might help Isaiah feel safer about coming out into the open again, knowing that all these people would be brought to justice. 

Finally, when he was done, he dropped the notebook and fell back heavily against the cushions. It was past 3am now and he felt like he had just run several marathons. But he felt good, really good about what he had just done.

He felt powerful. Strong. Bold. Like he could do anything.

He could single handedly stamp on Hydra’s ashes so thoroughly that they would never regenerate again. 

Cut off one head, two more will take its place  - No more!

He could make the world a safe place for Isaiah Bradley to no longer live in fear and hiding.

And… and…

He could talk to Sam and tell him everything. Tell Sam he overheard him and Sarah talking. Tell Sam that he’d not been fully honest about Yori. Tell Sam how he felt about him, properly, and ask if he felt the same way. 

He would do this tomorrow, before he left. 

Resolved, he sank back into the cushions, pulled over the blankets, and fell almost immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Notes:

I know, I'm sorry, there always has to be a little step back. But this is the penultimate chapter of Act Two - there's got to be some drama / angst that gets resolved in the next chapter. Anyway, look at Bucky actively choosing to use therapy techniques. He's making wonderful progress! The next chapter is the last one of Act Two by the way. I expect to post it next weekend.

Chapter 47: Mending Bridges (and Boats): Part Four

Mending Bridges (and boats): Part Four

For the first time in a long time Bucky found himself waking up naturally, slowly - not abruptly and unpleasantly from some nightmare. He savoured the feeling of it, of waking up feeling calm and actually well-rested, and just lay there for a moment, eyes still closed.

And then he heard a clattering, and a quiet ‘oh no’ from the corner of the room and he snapped to attention. 

 It was Cass and AJ, looking both panicked and horror struck, next to the shield which was outside of its case. Sam had left it there before going to bed last night, safely zipped inside its container. Cass and AJ must have seen it, and couldn’t resist opening it. Both boys looked scandalised - as if they’d been caught in the middle of doing something incredibly naughty. 

“Hey,” Bucky said. He was still feeling slightly bleary from sleep and it probably came out sharper than intended, for both boys immediately looked sheepish, guilty expressions on their faces. Bucky sat up, quick to reassure them that they’d done nothing wrong.

“It’s okay.” He stood up, and crossed over the room towards them, and picked up the shield. “I’m not cross or anything. We can put it back in the case.”

“Oh.” AJ glanced anxiously towards the door. “Mum made us promise not to wake you up.”

“She told us to be quiet,” Cass piped up.

Bucky realised that their guilty faces had nothing to do with being caught playing with the shield, they were worried about being told off by their mother.

“You didn’t wake me,” he reassured them. “I was already awake.”

They both looked relieved, and ran out of the room. 

Bucky carefully put the shield back inside its container and zipped it back up. The conversation he had with Sam the evening before replayed itself in his mind. He idly twisted his dog tags round and round in his fingers as he revisited their conversation and his solemn vow to himself before he fell asleep that he must speak to Sam and make things right. 

He could hear Sarah and the boys in the kitchen, clattering around and talking loudly. He wondered how on Earth he managed to sleep through all that noise. He must have been very tired, and very very deeply asleep. He couldn’t hear Sam with them.

He picked up his phone and noticed with a jolt that it was past 9am. Everyone else in the house could have been up for hours and he’d slept through it all. The effect that this place, and Sam’s family, had on him was almost magical. 

He gathered up his clothes and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day, then joined Sarah and the boys in the kitchen when he was ready. 

“Sam didn’t want to wake you,” Sarah said, after asking him if he’d slept well. “He went back down to the docks, wanted to look at the engine. Said to join him when you woke up. Do you want breakfast?”

She reeled off a large variety of breakfast options. Bucky, not wanting to appear ungracious, accepted some fruit and left the house about ten minutes later to join Sam, munching on an apple as he went.

He found Sam on the dock, heavily focused on an instruction manual. Sam grinned when he saw Bucky and gave him a wave as he approached.

“Morning, sleeping beauty!” Sam teased. “You must have been tired, you were out for the count when I came in this morning.”

Bucky cringed slightly at the thought that Sam had seen him sleeping, and hoped that he’d not looked too undignified. 

“I just got off the phone,” Sam said. “Been on calls all morning, trying to find the right people to talk to about Sharon’s pardon.”

Bucky had almost forgotten about Sharon and Sam’s promise that he would get her pardoned. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he said. “You don’t get to her position in Madripoor without getting your hands very, very, dirty. I wouldn’t trust her. And I’m not just saying that because she’s Peggy Carter’s niece, or grandniece or whatever that relationship is.”

“Steve trusted her,” Sam reminded him.

Yes. Bucky thought, but Steve had also trusted Colonel Phillips, and Peggy Carter. And later on, after decades in the ice, he’d then trusted Alexander Pierce, and Brock Rumlow, among countless others. Steve trusted too easily because he always gave people the benefit of the doubt. An admirable quality to be sure, but people often took advantage of that.

He chose not to say anything. Sam wasn’t Steve, and this was Sam’s decision.

“I made a promise to her,” Sam continued, “she got us out of more than one sticky situation, and we wouldn’t have found Karli without her.”

Bucky shrugged. He didn’t want to get into a disagreement with Sam about Sharon. This would be their last day together for goodness knows how long, and Bucky wanted to avoid conflict as much as possible. And as that thought crossed his mind, so did everything that he’d mentally resolved to do last night. 

“There’s something I need to tell you.” The words came out of him in a rush, and he’d not even taken a moment to prepare what it was about to say. But now he’d started, he had to continue.

Sam looked momentarily taken aback, and then wary. Bucky ploughed on before he lost his nerve.

“I heard you and Sarah talking yesterday evening, in the kitchen, after dinner.”

Sam’s wary expression changed to one of confusion. 

“I’m really sorry.” Bucky knew he was babbling, but he had to get the words out. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I just heard my name and then you were talking about Riley, and I just didn’t know what to do.”

Sam looked even more confused, and then a look of dawning comprehension appeared on his face as he managed to piece together what Bucky was talking about through his garbled nonsense.

Sam let out a short laugh. “God Bucky, have you been worrying about this all night?”

Bucky shook his head, now it was his turn to feel confused.

“You have!” Sam said. “This is why you were acting weird last night. Why didn’t you say anything then?”

Bucky gave a small half-shrug, feeling slightly less tense from Sam’s unexpected reaction.

“I wish you’d said something,” Sam said. “It’s okay Bucky, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like Sarah and I were talking quietly, for heaven’s sake.” 

“Oh.” Bucky realised that he’d got too much inside his own head, once again, and had blown this all out of proportion by agonising about it. He felt slightly shaky, and sat down next to Sam before his legs gave way. 

Sam laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t give it another thought,” he said. “Here, why don’t you help me understand this?” He waved the instruction manual at Bucky, who took it from him and stared at it, trying to will the blurry letters to morph into something he could understand. Sam then stood up and made a show of inspecting the engine.

Bucky watched him surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, as he flipped through the instruction manual, pretending to read it, hoping that Sam wouldn’t notice. 

He remembered what Sarah said the evening before to Sam, that she had noticed that Bucky spent most of the time gazing at Sam, presumably with some sappish adoring look. 

He’s smitten Sarah said. 

I know Sam had replied. 

Should Bucky bring this up now? Was it the right time to talk about this? Were they in the right place to talk about this? 

Bucky remembered the feeling he’d just felt, when Sam made eye contact with him. Something inside him lit up whenever Sam looked at him. He was burning to know if Sam ever felt the same thing. 

But was it the right time to talk about it?

Was this the right time to talk about… them? 

Bucky watched Sam searching through a box of tools as he considered this. The opening was there. He’d just talked about overhearing Sarah and Sam talking in the kitchen last night. He could bring it up. It would be easy.

You told Sarah things were complicated between us… what did that mean?

Sarah thought we might be a couple, can we talk about that?

Sarah said I was smitten with you. She’s right, you know? I wanted to know if you felt the same way?

All of those would be reasonable ways to bring this up. But knowing him, Bucky knew he’d mess it up in some way. More likely he’d end up losing his head completely, declare undying love for Sam right here and now on the dock, say something excruciatingly embarrassing that he’d never get over and scare Sam off for good.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he could manage this. 

Sarah thought I might have feelings for you. I do. They’ve been coming on gradually now for many months and I think it would be good to talk about it. 

Then he remembered the time he kissed Sam, and the emotionally vulnerable incident came flooding back unpleasantly in his mind. He remembered his promise to himself to let Sam take the lead in everything. The first move. He didn’t want to put Sam in an awkward position, throw him into a conversation that Sam wasn’t yet willing to have. 

Sam knew what he and Sarah had been talking about when Bucky had listened in on their conversation. If he wanted to talk about it, he’d have taken the opportunity already, the moment Bucky  brought it up. But he’d not. Maybe because this wasn’t the right time.

“Buck?” Sam’s voice pushed through his thoughts. “Think I might need that at some point.”

Bucky pulled himself out of his thoughts and forced himself to focus. Sam was pointing at the instruction manual still in Bucky’s hands. Bucky hadn’t realised that he’d been twisting it and fraying the corners while he’d been deep in thought. Bucky smoothed it out, and then passed it over to Sam with a quick apology.

Sam opened it up, and began scrutinising the engine, with an intensely focused expression on his face. 

The moment had passed.

Bucky cursed himself, but then reasoned that maybe it was best. If Sam wasn’t ready for this conversation, what good would it do to force it on him?

But if not now, then when?

What if the right moment never happened? 

What if Bucky left here later today, didn’t see Sam for weeks and weeks, and then Sam found someone else? Someone normal. Someone without all Bucky’s crazy and trauma, someone Sam didn’t need to tiptoe around. Someone who didn’t require work. 

Bucky mentally pictured this imaginary person, man or woman, that might be the perfect match for Sam. Someone active, someone who could keep up with Sam. Someone who was witty and interesting and kind, in a career helping others, or who did volunteer work. Someone brave, who could weather the challenges of being in a relationship with a former Avenger - someone who could accept that Sam may need to be away for weeks on end and not make a big deal of it.

Bucky could well imagine that Riley had had those characteristics. And Riley had been the great love of Sam’s life.   

Sam deserved this person. Not Bucky and his mess. And if Bucky didn’t take the leap, as Yori said, he’d miss the opportunity forever.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Bucky blurted out before he could stop himself. Sam stopped to look at him, prompting him to continue but Bucky’s brain had gone completely blank. He couldn’t remember how he was planning to bring this up.

Sarah thought I might have feelings for you

He couldn’t make himself say it. It sounded rubbish, even in his own head. 

Sam was still looking at him expectantly. He had to say something now. 

“It’s Yori.” Thank God he hadn’t lost the power of speech entirely. “Remember I told you about Yori?”

“Your Japanese friend?” Sam asked. 

Bucky nodded, the blankness in his brain beginning to clear now it knew he wasn’t going to throw himself headlong into an embarrassing romantic confession. “I haven’t told Christina about him. She knows the first time I met him, but I never told her about anything else. She doesn’t know I’ve been meeting with him, and still talking to him.”

This elicited a small frown from Sam. 

“I’m going to tell her,” Bucky said, before Sam could say anything else. “I should have told her, but I didn’t. But I will now. I’ll tell her this week, I promise. But…” he hesitated. He didn’t want Sam to take matters into his own hands, but he knew that if Sam did, it would be justified. “If you want to ring her yourself, you can. I won’t mind.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m not going to do that.”

“You did before,” Bucky reminded him, thinking back over the last year, and the three times Sam had reported on him to Christina. 

“I know I did,” Sam said, “because I needed to. Because you needed me to, even if you didn’t always see it. It’s different now. You’re different now.”

Bucky felt his spirits lift considerably, as they always did whenever Sam mentioned noticing any changes that Bucky had made, no matter how small. 

“You tell me you’re going to speak to Christina, and I trust you to do that,” Sam said. “I don’t need to do anything.” He paused a moment, then turned to look Bucky dead in the eyes. “I appreciate your honesty in telling me, Bucky,” he said. “It means a great deal to me.”

All Bucky’s anxious, nervous and guilty feelings disappeared the moment Sam’s brown eyes met his own. He felt electric. Relieved. Almost euphoric. He’d not messed things up, not at all. He’d done the right thing and, in doing so, provided more proof to Sam of the changes he’d gone through over the last year. Yes, he’d messed up, but the important thing was that he’d accepted responsibility for messing up, and was committed to making things right. 

“Do you mind if I give you a bit of advice, Bucky?” Sam asked. “About Yori?”

Bucky felt his heartbeat pick up speed, suddenly anxious again about what Sam’s advice would be. He knew he’d done wrong by Yori. He didn’t need Sam to tell him this. 

He nodded, too anxious about what Sam would think of him if he said that he didn’t want Sam’s advice actually.

“I didn’t say this yesterday, because I assumed you had spoken to Dr Raynor, but I feel I have to say something now I know you haven’t.”

This was making Bucky feel even more anxious, and he studiously avoided Sam’s eyes, and tried not to let Sam see how nervous he was feeling. He was sure he had tells, and he was sure Sam was able to pick up on them.

“Now, I only know what you’ve told me,” Sam said carefully, “and you know more than I do. But seeing this man, spending time with him - I don’t think you need me to tell you that it’s not healthy, Bucky. For you or for Yori.”

Bucky felt something tighten in his chest, his jaw clenched and he nodded shortly. Here it was. He had to listen. He had to show Sam that he was sensible now, that he would listen to advice.

“It’s not good for you,” Sam continued. “It’s keeping you entrenched in your feelings of guilt, constantly exposing yourself to all those negative feelings, all that self-blame and regret, and not allowing you to heal and move on. And for Yori…”

Bucky closed his eyes, bracing himself for the impact. Sam was taking his time, choosing his words very carefully.

“You’re taking away his right to make an informed decision about who he chooses to have in his life,” Sam said finally, after what felt like an age.

Bucky felt his stomach plummet. He knew he’d been doing Yori a great wrong, and hearing Sam’s words, even as tactful and careful as they were, confirmed this even more in his mind. He completely glossed over what Sam said about it not being good for him either, so focused he was on Yori and the harm being done to him. Sam was right - he’d pushed himself into Yori’s life to appease his own feelings of guilt and if Yori knew the truth of the matter, he’d never want to be around him.

“I know. You’re right,” Bucky said desperately, almost pleading. “How do I fix this? How do I make it right?”

Sam shook his head. “No, I can’t tell you what to do. No-one can. You’ve got to figure that out, with Dr Raynor.” 

He laid a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“I know you’ll do the right thing.” 

Sam sounded so confident - how could he have such certainty in him? Bucky had done nothing but show Sam time and time again that he never made good choices. Bucky just fell from one bad decision into another - it had been as such before Hydra and the Winter Soldier, and nothing had changed since. 

When Bucky looked at Sam’s eyes he could tell that Sam meant it, that Sam really did believe that Bucky was capable of doing the right thing. The realisation almost took his breath away. He could feel Sam’s hand on his shoulder, a comforting weight, and Sam’s eyes remained staring into his own. So assured. So confident. Maybe he could almost believe that Sam was right, and that it was possible for him to do the right thing. 

He gave Sam a small smile, and felt slightly disappointed when Sam broke eye contact and lifted his hand off Bucky’s shoulder. 

“We good?” Sam asked. 

“Oh yes,” Bucky replied quickly, wanting to reassure Sam that he’d not over stepped by sharing his thoughts about Yori.  “Yes… of course. I… thank you. I appreciate your advice. I… I think I know what I have to do.”

His mind was whirring. He’d talk to Christina about Yori, of course he had to do that. He’d promised Sam and Christina needed to know. But that didn’t solve the problem about Yori. There was only one way to make things right by Yori and that wasn’t by vanishing without a trace with no explanation. He could only make things right by telling Yori the truth, giving Yori exactly what he needed to make an informed decision about whether he wanted Bucky in his life, just as Sam said. 

“You’re staring, Buck.” Sam pointed out. “Want to give me a hand with this?”

Bucky took the distraction glady, keen to get this negative self-destructive spiel out of his head. Sam needed his help, and he was just hanging around brooding and being gloomy. He pushed himself to the task with a renewed vigour, taking back the instruction manual from Sam, and focused on actually paying attention this time. 

This is what Sam needed from him right now. And this was something he excelled at.

They worked on the engine together for the next two hours before Sam had to take a phone call.

“That was Sarah,” Sam said. “She’s taking the boys out for the afternoon, wants to give you the opportunity to say goodbye to them as you’ll be leaving before they get back.”

Bucky quickly got to his feet. “Yes, of course. I want to say goodbye to Cass and AJ, and thank Sarah for having me over.”

“I wanted to head back anyway,” Sam said. “I wanted to ask a favour before you leave later, and we can’t do it here.”

Sam refused to give Bucky an idea of what the favour was, waving his hand dismissively when Bucky asked. They quickly cleared everything up and made their way back to the house. 

“You’ve had quite an impact on them,” Sarah told Bucky as Cass and AJ put on their shoes. “They said they wouldn’t go anywhere without saying goodbye.”

Bucky felt unbelievably touched. 

“Will you come and see us again?” Cass asked. Bucky eyed Sarah cautiously, unwilling to just assume and invite himself over again without her permission.

“I’d love to come and see you again,” he said.

“Of course, you’re always welcome,” Sarah said immediately. And Cass let out a small joyful cheer before throwing his arms around Bucky’s waist and giving him a surprisingly strong hug. 

Bucky offered AJ a high five, who took it as an opportunity to hit Bucky’s right hand as hard as he could. Bucky pretended to wince in pain. “Ouch,” he said. “You got a strong arm.”

AJ grinned. 

Both boys then gave Uncle Sam a hug - which amounted to both of them piling on top of him at the same time and him spinning them around in a circle, all three of them laughing manically.

Bucky thanked Sarah for having him over. She waved away his thanks. “I meant it, any time.” 

And then the three of them were gone, leaving just Sam and Bucky alone in the now empty, quiet house. 

“Never quite feels the same without them here,” Sam remarked almost as if he could read Bucky’s mind. “Too quiet, you know?” 

Bucky nodded. He knew what it was like living in a large busy household, filled with the noise of excitable young children. It had just been him and his parents until Steve's mother died and Steve moved in with them. His sister Becca wasn't born until he was 12 years old, and then the other two had arrived in quick succession. The house quickly transformed from being a relatively calm house of two adults and two older children to a household with three children under the age of 5 and there hadn't been a quiet day since until the day he’d left.

“When do you need to leave?” Sam asked.

Bucky checked his phone for the time. It was past midday. He had a taxi booked to come pick him up from the docks to take him to the airport at 4.30. He told Sam this.

“Oh good,” Sam said, “we have enough time.”

This must be that favour Sam had mentioned earlier. “Time for what?”

“A quick lunch,” Sam replied. “And then I thought we could have a practice with the shield. I thought you might have some tips for me.”

Bucky felt a thrill rush through his entire body. This was becoming real, he thought. They’d moved way beyond the hypothetical of ‘what if Sam became Captain America’ into actually making it a reality. All the pieces were in place. Sam had the shield. He had the suit. He had the wings and the drone. And, more importantly, he had the will and was fully committed. 

“Let’s go!” Bucky said quickly, making a bee-line for the shield which he figured was still where it had been left earlier.

“Hold up,” Sam said, raising a hand and stopping Bucky in his tracks. “I’ve not eaten since 7am. I’m starving.”

Bucky waited, trying and probably failing to hide his impatience, while Sam quickly made them both a small pile of sandwiches.

“I’ve already been practising, a bit, since I got back here,” Sam explained as he started working his way through the pile of sandwiches. He offered one to Bucky. Bucky’s initial instinct was to decline, but then he remembered his promise to Christina, and to himself, to do better with his self care. He took a sandwich, and told himself to make a note of this in his notebook to show Christina tomorrow. 

“I’ve got a whole little arena set up outside,” Sam continued. “But I could really do with some help.”

It turned out that what Sam really wanted to get to grips with, was the technique of throwing the shield in such a way that it would ricochet off several objects, and then return to him. One of Steve’s signature moves. A skill that had taken Steve quite some time, and many destroyed trees, to master. 

After they’d eaten, Bucky collected his things, Sam grabbed the shield and led him away from the house to his makeshift arena - a small field, still in sight of the house, dotted with trees, several of which were all wrapped up in thick blue matting tied tightly with rope. 

“I remembered what you told me about Steve and the trees.” Sam watched as Bucky wandered around his small ‘arena’. “It’s entirely possible that Riley and I, many years ago, used to ‘borrow’ the wings and bring them back here to practise.” Sam gestured at the blue matting. “These saved us a lot of bumps and bruises and broken bones, I can tell you.”

Bucky smiled at the thought of Sam sneaking out highly expensive, specialist equipment from a secure military compound to bring it back here to practise with it. It did not surprise him in the slightest, it was so very Sam. 

Bucky took the shield from Sam and threw it. It bounced off one - two - three - four trees in a zig zag before soaring back at him, still at the same force at which he’d thrown it. He caught it with his metal arm. 

“That’s what I want to be able to do,” Sam said. “But I can’t make head nor tail of how it works.”

“It’s the special qualities of the vibranium,” Bucky said. “Usual laws of physics don’t apply, even Howard never had it fully worked out.”

He weighed the shield in his arm. It felt so light. And yet it could be so deadly. The vision of Walker raising it above his head to decapitate that man appeared in his mind. He quickly passed the shield on to Sam.

“Show me what you’ve been doing.” 

It should be Steve here with Sam, Bucky thought as he watched Sam demonstrate his shield wielding abilities. It should be Steve passing on the mantle and his legacy himself before heading off into a well-deserved, long awaited retirement. But would Steve ever have retired, if he hadn’t died? Probably not.

His mind flashed back to a time many years ago -  decades ago, when it had been him and Steve, in the forests of what was then known as Czechoslovakia,  in wartime, in exactly this position. It had taken Steve some time to get to grips with the shield and how to wield it properly. Bucky had gathered a lot of advice from Howard, about angles and distance and force, and he used this information to help Steve, in much the same way that he was helping Sam now. 

He felt such a strong sense of loss and nostalgia as he watched Sam throw the shield, and he wished so badly that it were the three of them here together. No matter how much time had passed, no matter how much he and Sam spoke about Steve, their shared grief and shared happy memories, Steve’s loss still remained as a very raw wound. And being here now, doing something that Steve should be a part of, it opened that wound further, made his absence so much more prominent.

Sam let out a frustrated groan as the shield clattered at his feet, not quite making it back to him. Sam was doing extraordinarily well, but the issue was that he was aiming to do the exact same things that Steve could do. That Bucky could do. But Sam was not a super-soldier, he needed to adjust his goalposts to something more realistic, rather than pushing himself past his limits to reach an unattainable goal. The issue was how to put this to Sam tactfully, without causing offence. 

“Steve and I used to practise a lot with the shield,” Bucky said. “I couldn’t do a fraction of the things he could, no matter how much I tried. I had to stick with my skill set - the things I was good at, my strengths. You’ll do the same.”

Sam picked up the shield and frowned down at it. “You mean I’ll never be able to do what Steve could do with it? No matter how much I practise, or how strong I am?”

“It’s not about raw power,” Bucky said. “The serum - it speeds up your brain too, it allows you to make all the mental calculations needed in a fraction of a second. Strength doesn’t play into it. In fact, Steve had to hold back a lot.”

He closed his eyes, briefly, remembering a conversation he and Steve had had once. He could hear it, word for word in his mind, Steve’s voice echoing from decades ago.

It’s a constant effort having to hold back. 

“It’s a constant effort having to hold back,” Bucky quoted Steve’s words. He could remember Steve’s frustration with himself, much the same as Sam’s frustration now - but for the opposite reason. Steve had been too strong. Sam felt that he wasn’t strong enough.

Sam was staring at him, listening intently, completely still and silent. 

Even after all this time, it doesn’t come naturally at all

And Bucky had said 

It will, with time. And practice. 

“Steve had to practise for ages before self-control came as naturally as breathing. He hurt people by accident a lot. One time he crushed all the bones in someone’s hand with just a handshake. He was devastated.”

Bucky looked down at his own hand. 

“It’s easy to forget your own strength,” he muttered, now realising that he wasn’t just talking about Steve, he was talking about himself as well. Steve had been desperate to be in control of himself, of his own body. And he’d put in the work and he’d managed it. 

Bucky quickly wiped at his eyes and cleared his throat. It always made him so emotional, evoking these memories of Steve.

“You’ll be in the air,” he told Sam. “You’ll be using it while flying. You don’t need to try to do the things Steve used to, on the ground. You’ll be doing things Steve never imagined. You need to utilise the shield to your strengths. Not his.”

Sam nodded, still never taking his eyes off Bucky.

“Did you have that same problem?” Sam asked. “With your strength. When you first became a super-soldier, I mean?”

Bucky hesitated. Sam, mistaking his hesitation for reluctance, quickly retracted his question. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer.” 

Bucky imagined that Sam was thinking about Hydra and Bucky’s situation when the serum was activated. Vastly different from Steve’s situation, and Sam supposed that Bucky wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“It’s not that,” Bucky said. “I just don’t remember.”

And that was the honest truth. His memories of what happened after the serum was activated, using vita-rays, were an absolute mess. By that point Fennhoff had managed to effectively transform him from a stubborn, difficult and determined prisoner, into an empty headed mindless sycophant and even now, after all the time he’d had to heal and work on his memories, that time period was little more than a haze. The odd broken memory. Usually an unpleasant one. Usually in his nightmares.

He imagined it would have taken time for him to get used to his new body, his new strength and his new abilities. He imagined it was likely that the people around him were probably killed or seriously injured. He wasn’t too sorry about that, given that they would all have been Hydra. But he was sure the punishment for his lack of control would have been severe, Fennhoff would have made certain of it.

“Probably,” he said, finally, in answer to Sam’s question. “I think it would take everyone time to get used to it. To learn how to hold back, take control. It's not easy.”

“But you’re in control of yourself now,” Sam pointed out. “At the bar in Madripoor, you didn’t kill any of the men who attacked you. You held back.”

“After eighty years, I suppose I must be,” Bucky said. 

There was a silence between them. Sam turned the shield over and over in his hands, he appeared to be thinking very hard. Bucky didn’t want to interrupt him, so he waited.

Finally Sam spoke. “I’m thinking about Karli and the others. They probably have the same issue, don’t you think?”

Bucky remembered Karli punching Lemar with enough force to send him across the room and break his back. The sickening crack as he’d connected with the pillar, and slid down to the ground slumped over, completely lifeless. Dead.

He remembered the shock on Karli’s face. The faces of the others in the room, all equally shocked and terrified. Bucky didn’t think she’d meant to kill Lemar, but in the heat of the moment, surrounded by all the violence and angry emotions, she’d lost control of herself and unleashed herself on an ordinary human with all the power of a super-soldier.

 “They’ve not had the serum long,” Bucky agreed. “They’re still learning. And that’s what makes them so dangerous. And now there’s Walker as well.”

God, Walker. Another brand new supersoldier running around unchecked, still getting to grips with all the new power and strength that came with the serum. 

“They’re deadly,” Bucky continued. “They’re not in control, and they answer to no one but themselves. An uncontrollable super soldier is a dangerous thing.”

 

That bloody mantra.

An uncontrollable super soldier is a dangerous thing.
Ein unkontrollierbarer Supersoldat ist eine gefährliche Sache

 

He’d heard those words first from Zola - in Krausberg. Way back when he’d first been given the serum, and they’d been trying to figure out how to control him before activating it. And then later from Colonel Phillips - moaning about Steve’s propensity to do his own thing rather than follow orders. It was always that way, wasn't it? Creating a super powered human and then being terrified of them doing their own thing. It was always about fear and control.

But they weren’t wrong. Super-soldiers were dangerous. Karli was dangerous. Walker was also dangerous. Running around uncontained, unchecked. They were rogue elements, posing very real risks and dangers. And they couldn’t be controlled.

“Is this when you tell me that Karli and the others have to be killed?” Sam asked. “That there’s no other way to bring this to an end. No chance of a peaceful resolution.”

 “Zemo would say so.” Bucky avoided answering Sam’s question. 

Sam scoffed. “Zemo.” He sounded scornful. “Do you think he’s right?”

Bucky fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering how on Earth they’d manage to get into this conversation. Sam was looking at him expectantly, and he had to give an answer.

“Well, I don’t think he’s wrong.” Bucky knew he was being evasive, refusing to say outright what he felt. But the truth was, he didn’t really know how he felt about it. He knew why Zemo believed the Flag Smashers should be killed, and he understood the logic and reasoning behind it. But he also understood why Sam was so averse to the idea, and he didn’t think Sam was wrong either. 

“Super-soldiers are inherently problematic,” Bucky continued. “They’re not made for benign reasons, Sam. They’re made for war and fighting. The serum gets in their heads. It dials everything up in there. It brings out the best in people, sure, like Steve and Isaiah, but it also brings out the worst in people too. Their darkest qualities, their fears, prejudices and paranoia, all increased along with incredible power to go with it. Zemo’s right at least in one thing - super-soldiers should not be allowed to exist. And if you can’t agree with that you just have to look at me. Look at Isaiah. What are we if not living proof of the measures people will go to in order to control and contain super-soldiers? Look how badly it can go wrong. The evidence is all around you. They’re a dream that needs to die.”

“I agree that super-soldiers should never be made in the first place,” Sam said. “But what about when they’re already here? Karli’s here now. I think Zemo’s wrong. I’ll never believe that killing people is the only solution to any problem. Not even Karli and the others. Do you know why I believe that?”

Bucky shook his head. 

“Because of you,” Sam said. “Because of Steve. Because in 2014 I told Steve that you needed to be stopped. Not saved - stopped. ‘He’s not the kind you save. He’s the kind you stop’, that’s what I told him. And we all know what I really meant. I couldn’t see that there was any other way to meet the threat that you posed. And Steve disagreed. He knew I was wrong.”

“You were right,” Bucky argued. “Where did Steve’s beliefs get him? Drowning in a river.”

 

Good command decisions get compromised by poor emotional responses. Colonel Phillips said that about Steve once.

Steve clearly had never changed. 

 

“You pulled him out,” Sam reminded him. “And I wasn’t right, was I? Steve was right. Because here you are, right now.” Sam gestured towards him. 

Bucky smiled ruefully. “Yes, here I am.”

Sam held the shield up, bringing Bucky’s full attention to it. “You’ve often mentioned Steve’s legacy when we’ve talked about the shield. You bring it up a lot. But his legacy isn’t the shield. It’s what he taught us, and what we’ve learned from him. His legacy is us. It’s you and me. And one thing I’ve learned is that I’ll not accept that death is the only way forward for Karli and her friends, and I’ll do anything in my power to prevent that from happening. Just as Steve did with you.”

Bucky felt a surge of pride rush through his chest. God, Steve would be so proud of Sam if he were here right now. Because of course Sam was right. Bucky had been so hung up on the shield as if it were the only part of Steve still in existence but of course it wasn’t. The shield didn’t make Steve the way he was. The serum didn’t either. Steve was Steve before all of that. His morals, his sense of right and wrong, his empathy, his determination to do what was right no matter how many people he crossed. All the things that made Steve who he was were still there, in Sam.  

“Oh my God,” Bucky said before he could stop himself. “You’re so like Steve, I can’t even…”

“No!” Sam said sharply, bringing Bucky back to reality with a thud. Bucky felt so stupid. He knew Sam hated being compared to Steve, but it had just rushed out of him, he couldn’t help it.

Sam took a deep breath, looking slightly chagrined at his short, almost harsh response. 

“I’m not a replacement for Steve,” he explained. 

And suddenly Bucky understood. It all made sense now why Sam bristled every time Bucky made a reference to him being like Steve. It was all so clear. Because hadn’t he said those exact same words himself to Christina once? 

They want me to be their pet super-soldier. I won’t do it. I’m not a replacement for Steve

He felt so stupid for not making that connection sooner. For not realising that Sam would be constantly aware that people would be drawing comparisons between him and Steve, probably unfavourably, particularly if he followed in Steve’s footsteps and became Captain America. And there Bucky was, constantly bringing up similarities between Steve and Sam, probably making it seem as though Sam only held esteem in Bucky’s eyes for those similarities rather than for the wonderful unique person that he was.

“Of course you’re not,” Bucky breathed, understanding Sam so much better now, and hoping that he could make Sam realise it. “You’re you. And that’s better. So much better. You’re… you’re amazing just as you are. You’re perfect.”

He could feel his face burning with a sudden embarrassment. He’d gone too far. It was too much. He was practically gushing over Sam and it was sickening.

Sam, however, didn’t look horrified. Bucky hoped he wasn’t misreading things. Sam looked a little flustered, but not in a bad way.

“Ok, alright calm down there a bit,” Sam flapped a hand at Bucky. He seemed a little flushed - it was hard to tell. It might be from the exertion of throwing the shield, or embarrassment, or maybe it was because he felt flattered? 

Sam threw the shield, his aim was a little off, but it ricocheted perfectly off two trees and then flew back towards Bucky, who caught it automatically.

“That was good,” Bucky said. “Once you’ve got it once, from then it’s just muscle memory.”

He swapped the shield from his left arm to his right. They probably didn’t have much time left before he had to leave but he couldn’t leave without coming to a proper resolution about this. He’d learned so much about Sam in such a short space of time and he needed Sam to know that he understood now. But he had to get the words out properly. Not leave any room for misinterpretation as he so often did. 

“I really want to apologise, Sam,” he said, “for being so wrapped up in my own feelings and my own grief all this time. I never thought about the reasons why you wouldn’t want the shield. I get it now, I really do.”

And he meant it. The conversation yesterday with Sam about Isaiah, about what it meant to be a black man in America, all Sam’s misgivings and worries about representing a country with all that problematic history in living memory, with echoes of it still resonating to this very day. Sam’s desire to be his own person, not to live in the shadow of the man who came before him, to be constantly compared and judged. 

“I shouldn’t have been angry with you,” Bucky said. “I wish I’d listened and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

If he’d only given Sam the smallest benefit of the doubt. One moment for Sam to explain where he was coming from or one tiny ounce of courtesy maybe things wouldn’t have been so difficult between them over the last few weeks. All that anger, all that resentment he’d held towards Sam for thoughtlessly tossing Steve’s legacy aside when Sam had done no such thing. Sam was carrying on Steve’s legacy in the way that really mattered. By learning from Steve, by listening to Steve and following his example where it mattered, but never losing sight of being his own person and making his own choices.

“God, I feel so annoyed with myself,” Bucky admitted. “I really do. I wish I’d seen it earlier. I wish it hadn’t taken until this weekend to really see where you’re coming from.”

He held out the shield to Sam. Sam took it with both hands and gave Bucky a warm smile. “Thank you,” Sam said graciously. “It means a lot to hear that.”

Sam’s fingers brushed against Bucky’s as he took the shield. There was a spark as their fingers touched. It was subtle but undeniably there. It lasted the briefest of moments before Sam lifted the shield away and Bucky dropped his arm. The sensation remained, hanging in the air between them. Surely Sam had felt that too? He had to have done. 

Frustratingly, there was no sign on Sam’s face that he’d felt the same spark. Bucky wasn’t sure whether he should say anything. Time was fast running out, and if Bucky didn’t mention it now, who knew if there’d ever be another opportunity? 

“I should make a move,” Bucky said. “I can’t miss my flight; Christina is expecting me tomorrow morning.”

“Back to the old routine, then?” Sam asked.

Bucky let out a small exasperated laugh and shook his head. “Yup. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10am like clockwork.”

Sam gave him a sympathetic smile. “Therapy doesn’t last forever. You’ll get there, I know you will.” 

“You’ll call me when Karli shows up?” Bucky asked. “I want to help, and I promise I won’t do anything without your approval.”

Sam nodded. “She won’t lay low for long, so you’d better be prepared. And don’t go ignoring me again. If you don’t feel like talking, send me a text or something at least to let me know.”

“All right.” 

They were about to say their goodbyes. Bucky was about to leave and he still hadn’t said anything to Sam about his feelings. His heartbeat picked up speed as he realised that this was the last possible moment to bring this up. He felt terrified - terrified of opening himself up to rejection, and also terrified of walking away without saying anything. 

Sam stepped closer, reached forward with his arm to clasp Bucky’s. Bucky automatically mirrored Sam, reaching out with his own arm to clasp Sam’s hand tightly in his own, in an odd kind of handshake. As they both stepped forward Bucky became keenly aware of how close they were.

He felt slightly shaky. Now or never. He gazed intently at Sam, willing Sam to be able to read his mind. Silently willing Sam to say what Bucky felt he could not. Sam hadn’t stepped back. The same electricity Bucky had felt earlier when their fingers had touched was back. It was overwhelming. Surely Sam could feel it? 

Bucky tightened his grip slightly on Sam’s hand, felt Sam’s fingers run over his knuckles. Sam wasn’t stepping back. Why wasn’t Sam stepping back? Sam’s eyes were looking down, at their joined hands, while Bucky was staring intently into at Sam’s face - his eyes, his mouth. He mentally willed Sam to look up. 

And almost as if Sam had indeed read his mind, Sam’s eyes rose to meet his own. Bucky felt a flush run all over his body as their eyes met. Did Sam look flustered? Or was Bucky just projecting? At some point one of them had stepped even closer to the other, Bucky didn’t know who, and they were so close now. So close. Bucky felt it would be so easy to kiss Sam again, just as he had done before, but he couldn’t do that could he? Not again, not after what happened last time.

It felt like ages had passed, but in reality it was probably only a few seconds. One of them had to do something or say something, before this became really awkward. 

It was Bucky who broke the silence.

“Sam?” he asked tentatively, feeling completely at a loss at what to do next.

It was like a spell had been broken. The moment Bucky broke the silence Sam cleared his throat, dropped Bucky’s hand and took a step back, putting a barrier of distance between them.

The message was clear. 

Bucky hung his head, feeling immensely embarrassed, his heart beating so hard in his chest he thought it might have the power to break his ribs. He bent down to pick up his backpack, his brain screaming at him not to let this moment pass, not to leave things like this.

“Sarah’s right, you know.” Bucky’s boldness took him completely by surprise. “When she said I have feelings for you. But I think you know that.”

Sam stilled. Bucky couldn’t tell what Sam was thinking, but he was listening and he wasn't interrupting. He was waiting for Bucky to continue. Bucky abandoned his backpack and stepped closer to Sam.

“I just want to know if there’s anything…” Bucky gestured between him and Sam. “Anything there? If there’s any… possibility…?”

“Bucky.” 

Sam’s tone said it all. It was kind. But it was also firm. Closed off. Final.  

Bucky sucked in a breath. 

“Don’t say anything,” he said quickly, turning back to pick up his bag. “I get it, you don’t need to tell me.”

“No, Bucky, I do need to say something. My God, you really know how to choose your moments don’t you?”

Bucky looked over at Sam, trying to work out whether Sam was genuinely frustrated or whether he was more amused. He looked like a mixture of both. 

“I can’t believe you,” Sam said. “You bring this up as you’re leaving. You don’t get to rush off now. You have to listen to me.”

Bucky let his backpack slowly drop through his fingers onto the grass. 

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” Bucky said. “It doesn’t have to change anything. I just thought…”

“What Riley and I had was the real deal.” Sam interrupted Bucky, with a tone that made it clear that Bucky had to stay and listen, and to stop talking.

“If he hadn’t died we would have gone the distance. To our ‘Happily Ever After’, whatever that looks like. I’m not saying it was perfect, of course it wasn’t. No relationship is. But it was the real thing.”

“I know it was,” Bucky said. 

Sam raised a hand. “Since then, I’ve had relationships. I wouldn’t even call them relationships. There’s been people. They come and go. It never works out. It’s always the wrong person at the wrong time. It never lasts. I don’t want that anymore. I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for the real thing. What I had with Riley.”

Bucky felt something in his stomach drop as he realised what Sam meant. “You think you can’t get that with me.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Now Sam sounded frustrated, like Bucky wasn’t listening properly, but he was and he thought Sam’s meaning was clear. “What I’m saying is that I think that’s what it could be. I think we could be the real thing. But not now. Not yet.”

Bucky felt at a complete loss. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that neither of us is what the other person needs right now,” Sam said carefully. “And if we launch into something, it will go wrong, because we’re not ready. It will end messily, leave one or both of us with a broken heart, and we’ll never get a second chance to make it work.”

“So what are you saying?”

Sam picked up Bucky’s backpack and passed it over to him.

“I’m not saying not ever,” he said, “I’m saying not yet. Okay?”

Bucky’s fingers grasped the straps of his bag automatically, and he responded on autopilot. “Of course.”

He swung his bag over his shoulder. Sam was still talking. Telling him to ‘travel safe’ and to call him when he got back to let him know he was okay. Bucky responded automatically, going through the motions of saying their goodbyes, before finally he turned to leave. His legs felt like jelly, it was a wonder how they managed to carry him forward. He wondered if Sam was watching him walk away, but he didn’t dare turn around to see.

When Bucky rounded a bend in the road that took him out of sight of Sam’s home, he let his legs give way, and he sank to the ground and took a moment to collect himself.

That had been intense. 

Sam had shot him down but also, at the same time, he’d not shot him down. What on Earth did that mean?

I’m not saying not ever, I’m saying not yet

Either Sam reciprocated his feelings or he didn’t. It shouldn’t be that complicated. If Sam shared his feelings why would he say ‘not yet’? What was wrong with now? Why did Sam have to be so confusing? 

Neither of us is what the other person needs right now

That felt cryptic and he didn’t feel that he was in the right frame of mind to work out what it meant. It sounded like something someone would say when they wanted to end a relationship, not start one.

But Sam hadn’t said no, had he? Sam had talked about wanting a real relationship, and that’s exactly what Bucky wanted as well. If the time wasn’t right for Sam, Bucky would wait until the time was right. He just wished Sam had been a bit clearer about what it was exactly he was waiting for, but then that was Bucky’s fault wasn’t it? If he’d brought it up earlier that day, like he’d meant to, they’d have had the time to properly talk things through. As it was, Bucky had pretty much set off a bomb seconds before he had to rush off. He couldn’t exactly blame Sam for feeling rushed and frustrated. 

Talking about rushed, he checked the time on his phone - he really needed to get a move on. He pulled himself to his feet, his mind still filled with the enigma that was Sam Wilson.

I’m not saying ‘not ever’, I’m saying ‘not yet’.

That was good, he decided as he walked on. It was promising. Things were better between him and Sam. Bucky had been clear and honest with Sam, he’d apologised sincerely and gained a deeper understanding of Sam and his feelings and his motivations. And Sam was open to the thought that he and Bucky could move their relationship up a level, at some point. Sam could see a future where they were together. That meant that on some level, Sam had to reciprocate Bucky’s feelings, otherwise he would just have said that he didn’t feel the same way, and they could have just left it at that.

I think we could be the real thing

Suddenly, Bucky was smiling. He felt excited. Hopeful. This was progress. They were moving in the right direction, just slower than Bucky had anticipated, but that was fine. Better even. As Sam said, best not to rush into something that neither of them were ready for. He picked up his speed, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly cheerful.

He and Sam would get there. They would make it. He knew it. He could feel it.

One small step at a time.

 

Notes:

That was the last chapter of Act 2!! I am so glad to get here, you have no idea.
There's a lot of things I am excited for coming in Act 3! Act 3 is focused on healing. There's still steps back and angst but the theme of Act 3 is about moving forward, and - more importantly - acceptance.

Unfortunately I do need to take a small break. I need some time to decompress a bit, get Act 3 rewritten as I'm sure it needs a lot of work doing. - the last time I did anything to Act 3 was over a year and a half ago. I need to figure out the final chapter count as it's going to be far longer than it was originally intended to be. So I'm going to be away for a bit, I can't say exactly how long for - maybe two, three months. But the story will go on, I promise.

Chapter 48: Good Intentions

Notes:

I know it's been a long break, but we're back now. Once again I aim to update fortnightly, but there may be times when I can't. I've been constantly ill since November, I had COVID, then the flu over Christmas and then something else. I'm better now but it took me a while to get back into this story.

And, editing Act 3 has been an absolute nightmare. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I was going to add a new plot line into Act 3. I was going to save it for the prequel, but then I reminded myself that Flawed Perfection is supposed to be a complete story in itself, and that people shouldn't have to read the others to get the whole story. And in the original draft of Act 3 I was providing hints for something that I never actually revealed within the story which didn't fit with the goal, and my promise, of Flawed Perfection as a fully self contained story. So I decided to add this in, which then caused problems with pacing, I had to go back and check Act 1 where I'd already laid some ground work for this plot line and check the internal consistency and continuity of the story. I had to do a complete rewrite of Act 3 to make it work. I have no regrets for this decision even though it has caused me no end of anxiety! There are some scenes which I have now added which I absolutely love, and I am so glad I am putting them into this story, rather than saving them for a prequel which I may never write, or may never be read.

And I've readjusted the Final Chapter count, as Act 3 has now grown considerably longer. This may still be subject to change as Act 4, which is currently an extended epilogue of three chapters, may end up being five. But I'll worry about that later.

But I got there in the end. And I was so excited this week to be editing Chapter One, and getting it ready to post, finally! (I took the whole week off work for the sole purpose of getting this part of the story ready)

Act Three - The Life that I was Given

 

“I ask for no Forgiveness, Father, for I have not sinned. I have only done what I needed to do to survive.

A small boy once asked me if I was a bad man. If I could answer him now I would tell him, that when I was a young boy I killed a man to save my brother's life. I am not sorry for this, I am proud of this.

I did not ask for the life that I was given. But it was given, nonetheless. And with it, I did my best.”

 

Lost Season 3, episode 5 - The Cost of Living (2006)

Link to YouTube Clip

Chapter One - Good Intentions

 

Bucky wished he could have stayed in Delacroix with Sam for longer. He hated that he had to rush off how he did, especially given the conversation he’d had with Sam the moments before he left. On the taxi ride back to the New Orleans airport, he wondered if he should have stayed. Several times he considered asking the driver to turn around and take him back. He felt uneasy about how he had left things with Sam. It felt like unfinished business. 

He was furious with himself for leaving it until the last moment to tell Sam how he felt about him. Bucky had been there with Sam for two days! There’d been ample opportunity to open up to Sam, and Bucky - in typical fashion - had left it right until the last possible moment, leaving no time whatsoever for him and Sam to talk about it. 

And instead Sam had left Bucky with the enigmatic words ‘I’m not saying ‘not ever’, I’m saying ‘not yet’’ and ‘Neither of us are what the other needs right now’. And Bucky was desperate to ask Sam what he’d meant by that. What Sam was looking for. What Sam expected Bucky to do, or to be, to get to a point where Sam could feel the same way about Bucky as Bucky felt about him.

That wasn’t his only reason for wanting to remain in Delacroix. Being with Sam and his family over the weekend had felt like some kind of wondrous dream. For the first time since Bucky couldn’t even remember when he’d felt normal. No-one treated him with suspicion. No-one looked at him as if he were a bomb that might go off. Sarah knew who he was, and she’d sent him off to play alone with her children. And it had been so quiet there, watching the sunset, so peaceful. And Sam’s friends on the docks had just treated him as if he were just anyone. 

He could have stayed there forever. 

But he had to leave, because he had to get to therapy tomorrow morning, and he couldn’t risk missing therapy, not again. And as the taxi drove ever closer towards the airport, Bucky felt a heavy dread growing in the pit of his stomach. 

He didn’t want to go back. Compared to where he’d just been, going back to Brooklyn almost felt like going back to a prison. Locked into a routine of therapy three times a week. Back to his apartment on the floor of a building where no-one else lived, just in case he posed a threat to others. Back to being stressed and anxious about Yori and how to make things right for him. Back to being alone, in the middle of a noisy, busy city, so far removed from the peaceful quiet that was Sarah’s home. It all felt so dismal and depressing now. The feeling of dread grew ever larger, and the thoughts continued as Bucky arrived at the airport, waited for his plane, and then took his window seat, waiting for the plane to take off.

And to be away from Sam. He’d been stuck to Sam’s side the last few weeks, ever since he’d angrily confronted Sam about the shield before circumstances whisked him off to Germany to deal with the Flag Smashers. Before that, it had been months since they’d last seen or spoken to each other. That was Bucky’s own fault, for being angrily stubborn with Sam for reasons which now felt petty. It could be weeks, maybe months, before he saw Sam again. Sam would be busy. He had the shield now; he had the wings and the drone and the suit. Sam was going to be Captain America now. He’d had other things on his mind. Such as how to get the government to endorse him as Captain America, how to deal with the remaining Flag Smashers, and then there was his desire to seek justice for Isaiah Bradley. Bucky doubted very much that Sam would have much time to waste thinking about Bucky and their… relationship? - whatever it was.

Thinking about Isaiah Bradley suddenly reminded Bucky about the pages and pages of names and locations he’d scribbled in the back pages of his notebook. He’d meant to show them to Sam, and forgot to mention it. He found the photos he’d taken of them on his phone, and forwarded them on to Sam.

I’m going to ask Christina to pass these on to the President, he quickly typed, Show them to Isaiah. He might have something to add. 

And maybe it might make Isaiah feel safer, Bucky thought, to know that all these Hydra-adjacent people were now being made known to the government. So long as the government did something useful with the information. 

Bucky fiddled with his phone, resisting the urge to call Sam. The conversation about ‘not ever, but not yet’ was not one to have over the phone, especially moments before his plane took off. 

Bucky’s thoughts returned to thinking about what was going to happen once he returned to Brooklyn. He would see Christina tomorrow morning. She’d want to know how things went with Sam over the weekend. He’d also promised Sam that he’d tell her about Yori and he meant to keep that promise. 

Oh Shit! Yori 

Butterflies exploded in Bucky’s stomach as Yori’s kind, wrinkled old face appeared in his mind’s eye. 

He had to tell Christina about Yori tomorrow!

But that wouldn’t work. He’d decided yesterday, during his conversation with Sam, that he was going to tell Yori the truth about his son. What was it Sam had said?

 

You’re taking away his right to make an informed decision about who he chooses to have in his life

 

And it was that which made Bucky realise he had to tell Yori the truth about what had happened to RJ, his son. But if he kept his promise to Sam and told Christina about Yori first, then he’d miss his opportunity to do so. Christina would tell him never to see or speak to Yori again, of that he was certain. Instead, a faceless, nameless government peon would tell Yori that the man who had been masquerading as his friend was his son’s cold-blooded murderer. He couldn’t let that happen. Yori had to hear it from Bucky himself.

Before he could stop himself, he navigated to Yori’s name on his phone and began typing out a quick message. 

I’m back in Brooklyn tonight, and I need to speak to you urgently. Can I come to see you first thing in the morning?

He added a second message saying please

And then switched his phone to airplane mode. He’d have to wait until he landed to get Yori’s response. Yori went to bed early. There would be no chance of meeting with him tonight. It would have to be in the morning, before therapy. And then he could keep his promise to Sam and tell Christina about Yori. 

He felt sick as the plane took off. 

As soon as the plane arrived in New York, Bucky checked his messages. A message from Sam giving thanks for his notes, and asking Bucky to let him know when he arrived back home. And a message from Yori, telling him to come around 8am tomorrow morning. He replied to both of them.

That was good. He could see Yori and then go to therapy. It would all work out just fine.

And then the realisation hit Bucky like a tonne of bricks - tomorrow morning he would have to tell Yori that he’d killed his son.

He’d been so panicked at the thought of not losing the opportunity to tell Yori the truth, that he’d not considered how on Earth he was going to manage it. 

The last time he’d tried speaking to Yori about his son, he’d just frozen in Yori’s doorway, unable to get the words out, before mumbling something about paying for lunch and then rushing off. He Bucky could not do that again.

Arriving home, Bucky threw his backpack on the sofa, and began pacing round and round the room, thinking about Yori, what he would say, how he would say it. Normally, Bucky tended to just throw himself headfirst into situations like this, without giving it much thought first. Such as the first time he’d tried to tell Yori about his son, or the time he visited Brock Rumlow without thinking it through first. This time, he needed a different approach. He had to plan; he had to prepare. If he got this wrong, it could be disastrous for his friend, who deserved so much better than to have Bucky turn up like a whirlwind, drop a bomb on Yori’s head and then vanish without a trace.

“I’m here to talk to you about your son,” he murmured out loud, as he paced. No, he didn’t like that. “You said you wanted to know how your son died.” He didn’t like that either. Too abrupt. Maybe he should start first by explaining to Yori who he was or, rather, who he had been. But how does one start a conversation about that? Just walk into Yori’s home and start talking about how he’d once been a mass-murdering assassin who was once one of the world’s most wanted criminals? 

Bucky pushed the palms of his hands into his forehead and groaned. This was dreadful. This would be the hardest thing he’d ever done. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he shouldn’t do it…

Bucky knew he had never made a good decision. The memories of poor decision making and choices he had made in the past constantly plagued him. But he knew in his bones that this was the right thing to do. Sam believed in him. 

 

I know you’ll do the right thing

 

That’s what Sam had said. How Sam had this faith in Bucky, Bucky couldn’t even imagine. But Sam did. And that’s what gave Bucky the confidence to know that this decision, despite his poor track record of decision making, was the right one.

It would cause Yori incredible pain and hurt, yes, Bucky knew that. But it could also give Yori the answers that he always wanted. It might even give him closure. Bucky shuddered. That word again, closure, that always kept popping up. Closure was important, apparently. Bucky believed he alone could bring Yori closure regarding his son’s death, if any closure was possible. 

And Yori would have questions, too, Bucky supposed, questions that he’d need to answer. 

Bucky spent the entire night pacing round and round his apartment, rehearsing what he would say, anticipating Yori’s questions, thinking of responses. By the time morning arrived, despite the hours of agonising, he felt no more prepared for this than he had the night before. 

Bucky showered, pulled on some clean clothes, and left for Yori’s apartment block with a heavy heart. He was going to do this, no matter what. He would not lose his nerve again. Slowly, he climbed the stairs to Yori’s floor, slowing further as he neared his door. 

He never came to Yori’s apartment, not since the first meeting when he’d brought Yori up to tend to his head injury. Yori had asked once or twice if Bucky would meet him there - but Bucky had always come up with some excuse as to why he couldn’t. The only time he’d been inside Yori’s apartment had been the time when he’d glanced over at the shrine to RJ Nakajima and had the horrible realisation that he’d not only seen the young man before, but that he had been the one to hold a gun to his forehead and shoot him dead. 

 

I didn’t see anything. Please

 

RJ’s last words echoed in Bucky’s mind as he paused a few feet away from Yori’s door. Oh God, he couldn’t do this. He knew he couldn’t do this. He took a step backwards. But then another thought, another memory, entered his mind.

 

I will never know what happened to him

 

Yori had been Bucky’s only friend for months while Bucky ignored Sam, and had been nothing but kind and friendly to him. Twenty-one years ago, Yori received news of his son’s death, and no-one told him what happened. Yori deserved nothing less than the truth, no matter how hard Bucky found it. 

Bucky took a deep breath, checked his phone – 8:00 AM sharp – and knocked on Yori’s door.

He could hear movement inside the apartment. Yori had been in the kitchen. Bucky could hear his footsteps padding quietly, seeing Yori in his mind’s eye leaving his kitchen, walking past the shrine to his son, pausing at the door to look through the peephole, before opening it up. 

“So good to see you again, James,” Yori grinned up at him. Bucky noticed how small Yori was, how frail he appeared. 

Yori mumbled a greeting in Japanese and ushered Bucky through the door.

“I was just making some sencha,” Yori said, in English now, as he closed the door behind Bucky. “Sit down and I’ll bring it through.”

“Oh no, Yori,” Bucky protested feebly, as Yori rushed back to the kitchen. “I’m fine, really.”

Bucky didn’t watch as Yori went to the kitchen, because he didn’t want to look over and see RJ’s shrine. He moved into the living area of the apartment and hovered by an armchair. He wasn’t sure if he should sit down; sitting felt disrespectful, given the news he was about to give the older man.

Yori returned, brandishing a hot mug of tea and placing it on the table in front of Bucky. 

“Sit, Sit,” Yori said again, flapping his arms at Bucky. Feeling slightly at a loss, Bucky sat. 

“So you arrived back from your time abroad,” Yori said. “I hope it was a successful trip.” 

Bucky recalled that he’d told Yori he was travelling abroad for work and wouldn’t be back for a while. Not entirely a lie, technically, but it wasn’t truthful either. He needed to move this on before he lost his nerve.

“Yori, please sit down,” he said. “I need to tell you something… it’s really important.”

“I have something to show you.” Yori wasn’t sitting down. “It’s in a newspaper. Let me see if I can find it.”

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment as Yori shuffled around the room, searching through piles of papers and opening and closing drawers. Then he stood up. From his position in the room he could just see the shrine to RJ. The candles were lit. He imagined Yori must light them every morning. Bucky held his breath and covered the room in a few quick strides, stopping before RJ’s shrine. 

It was just as he remembered it. The candles, the photograph of the smiling young man. He could hear Yori behind him had stilled. Bucky kept his eyes on the photograph.

“I need to talk to you,” Bucky said quietly, “about your son.” Bucky gestured towards the photograph, and turned to Yori.

Yori’s eyes flickered between Bucky and RJ. 

“About my…” he looked confused. 

“I want to tell you how your son died.” How he got those words out, Bucky didn’t know, but they came out. It wasn’t what he’d rehearsed, but all of that was, quite frankly, out of the window now. 

Yori finally sat down. He sat in the armchair that Bucky had just been sitting in. Bucky walked back over to Yori and sat down in the chair opposite him. He considered remaining standing but thought that might appear too intimidating. 

“How?” Yori asked him. “You found out how my son died? Is that why… you were travelling?”

“No, Yori,” Bucky said. “I didn’t find out. I know how he died because I was there.”

Yori’s eyes snapped up to meet Bucky’s. “You couldn’t have been there. My son died over twenty years ago. I told you this.” 

Yori’s eyes flickered away from Bucky, towards the direction of the shrine.

“It was twenty-one years ago,” Bucky agreed, “and I was there.”

“I don’t understand.” Yori looked perplexed, and Bucky hated himself for causing this. Bucky, at a push, looked like he could be in his late thirties; even considering the blip, he knew how outlandish it sounded that Bucky himself would have been present to witness RJ’s death over twenty years ago.

“Look, Yori,” Bucky shuffled forward to the edge of his chair. “You were right when you said that your son was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw something he shouldn’t have seen, and that’s why he died - no… he was killed. He was murdered by…” the words caught in his throat. He was trying, trying so hard to appear calm, but inside his heart was pounding as if he’d just been running at 80 miles per hour, and he could feel the back of his neck tingling with sweat. 

Yori was staring at him intently. Listening with rapt attention, barely even breathing. Bucky dragged his eyes away from Yori and stared at his gloved fingers, entwined in his lap.

“Your son was murdered by the Winter Soldier.’ 

A pause, while Yori digested this information. Bucky’s heartbeat sped up faster, knowing what he had to say next. 

“And that was…” he tried to force his voice to remain stable, but he failed. Somehow, he forced out the last word. 

“Me,” he said. 

He dared to look at Yori, who remained seated opposite him, looking shell-shocked, but made no movement and was saying nothing. Yori’s face was inscrutable, and Bucky wondered just how much of this Yori was taking in, because it was a lot. 

Bucky waited. He noticed dimly that his right leg was shaking, and quickly pressed down on his knee with his hand, forcing it to stay still. 

After what seemed like hours, Yori finally spoke. “What are you saying to me?” A quiet voice. Confused. 

Bucky chewed on his bottom lip. He’d been too evasive, beating around the bush, not making it clear what he was saying. Trying to abdicate responsibility. He was being too passive, he realised, in his description of what happened. He was killed by... He was murdered by… He was dancing around the subject. He needed to state it head on. He needed to just say it… just get it out. 

I killed your son. 

“What I’m saying,” Bucky knew he was speaking, but oddly enough it felt like someone else was speaking, and he was actually very far away, “is that it was me. Twenty-one years ago, I killed your son.”

Bucky, still feeling very distant, then pulled off his left glove and,avoiding Yori’s eyes, raised his hand up so Yori could see the sleek black and gold metal. His arm was covered, but this would be enough. 

He could hear Yori’s ragged breathing. A short sharp intake of breath as Yori took in the sight of his metal hand and fingers. Bucky looked up at Yori and then averted his gaze at the sight of Yori’s distressed face. He saw the mug of tea that Yori had made for him, still on the table between them, and wished he could turn back the clock. Wind it back to the beginning when he had arrived, and Yori had been so eager and happy to see him, giving him a drink and inquiring about his travels. And now Yori looked broken, desolate, despairing. And it was all Bucky’s fault.

“You’re James Barnes,” Yori whispered. “I read about you in… in the paper.”

Of course, Bucky thought. Yori spent most of his time reading newspapers. He would have read all about the Winter Soldier, back in 2016. And he would have read even more recent news reports about his pardon and release, all the rubbish published to revamp his image, making him look sympathetic and worthy of freedom.

He remembered reading the article about Elizabeth Dugan, another family member of one of his victims. Well, she’d almost been a victim herself. Elizabeth had spoken about finding out about Bucky’s pardon and release. How no-one had talked to her about it, asked her how she felt about her grandfather’s killer being out and about, or even let her know before she saw it in the news.

And now Yori. Someone else who’d lost someone dear to them because of the Winter Soldier, because of him, now finding out that the person responsible was free, and no-one had even bothered to give him the courtesy of a heads up. 

“You killed my son?” Yori asked. The quiet, pleading desperation in Yori’s tone was almost enough to shatter Bucky’s attempts to maintain control of himself. Bucky clenched his jaw and willed himself not to get emotional. This was not his grief. He did not have the right to force his own emotions onto Yori. 

Bucky didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he nodded.

A short sharp intake of breath from Yori. And then in a small shaking voice- 

“Why?”

“Oh,” Bucky breathed. He looked up at the ceiling, as if somehow the ceiling could give him the answer to this question. “Why?” Bucky repeated the question and his own voice shook just as much as Yori’s did. 

I didn’t have a choice

It seemed wrong to say something like that, like he was trying to make excuses. Trying to absolve himself, and he didn’t have the right to do that. He remembered what he’d said to Christina once.

 

I cannot absolve myself of the responsibility for all the pain, horror and death I have caused. I don’t have the right.

 

The only people who could absolve him were the people themselves - or their loved ones. People like Yori, like Elizabeth Dugan. As much as he craved absolution and forgiveness, he would not insult Yori by begging for it, or by trying to make himself sound as sympathetic as possible. It would be a disservice to Yori, and to the memory of his son, to do that.

“Why?” Bucky repeated. “Because… because that’s what I did, Yori. I was an assassin. Back then, that’s all I did.”

He quickly put his left glove back on, and tried to surreptitiously wipe his eyes. 

“You said…” Yori spoke, regaining more control over his voice. “You said… wrong place at the wrong time. So he saw you kill someone else. Who?”

Bucky sighed, and he clenched his hands together. He hated delving into these memories. Hated the reminder of who he’d been, and what he’d done. But he pushed through these feelings. “Some Russian oligarch who’d run afoul of Hydra,” he said. “There was him and two others.” He paused. “And three witnesses.”

 

Don’t leave witnesses. Never leave witnesses.

Jones

Anderson

Nakajima

Three names amongst many. 

“My orders were to leave no witnesses alive,” Bucky explained, his eyes now fixed on the floor.

 

Acceptable collateral damage That's how Alexander Pearce had described the deaths of three innocent people, who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. How pleased that man had been that the Winter Soldier had performed so beautifully to his expectations. Then there'd been the pride that the Winter Soldier had felt, at a job well done with a handler who'd been pleased with him.

“How did you kill him?” Yori’s voice remained meek and small, but there was also something almost authoritative about it, making it clear to Bucky that Yori expected answers, no matter how hard Bucky might find it to answer them.

Bucky tried to blank out the image of the terrified young man, shaking from head to toe, wrenching his key in the lock as the Winter Soldier approached him. He could feel his eyes welling up, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it by wiping his eyes again.

 

I didn’t see anything

Please

 

“I shot him,” Bucky said.

“Where?” Yori followed up immediately.

Bucky felt a tear escape. It ran down his right cheek and he could taste it on his lips. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he raised his right hand and pointed to the middle of his forehead. 

“Did it hurt?”

Bucky shook his head. “No,” his voice cracked noticeably then. He swallowed. “No. He died instantly. He didn’t feel anything, I promise.”

Small comfort, he thought.

Yori nodded.

“Did he…?” Yori’s own voice broke then, and Bucky could see that Yori was forcing himself to stay together just as much as Bucky was. And Yori was doing a more successful job of it. Yori took a second to compose himself, and Bucky wiped at his eyes again as Yori’s own eyes flickered once more towards his son’s shrine.

“Did he say anything?” 

Oh God

He should have expected this question. All that pacing he did last night thinking about this conversation and never once did it occur to him that Yori would want to know what his son’s last words were. He should have thought of it. Hadn’t Tony Stark asked him that same question in Siberia?

 

Tell me what they said before you murdered them, or is that not worth remembering?

 

“What were my son’s last words?” Yori asked.

 

I didn’t see anything

Please

 

“Please,” Yori said. His voice lacked the hate and anger that had filled Tony Stark’s voice. It was a little voice, a quiet voice. The voice of a broken and destroyed old man whose heart had been ripped to shreds. 

“Uh,” Bucky tried to speak, but his voice was completely failing him now. His leg was shaking again. And it was pointless now trying to pretend that he wasn’t on the verge of tears, because there were more now streaking down the sides of his face. He put his hand over his mouth and pressed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and willed himself to carry on, to see this through until the end.

“He knew he was going to die,” Bucky said, and the words did come out, for all that they were so shaky he was surprised that Yori could even understand him. “He was so scared.” Bucky covered his eyes with his hand, trying to hide the tears from Yori, but he knew it was useless. His voice cracked. “He said, please. He said, I didn’t see anything. Please.”

And the tears kept falling.

Yori stood up abruptly and walked across the room. Bucky could tell without looking that Yori had moved to stand over his son’s shrine. Bucky wiped his eyes with his gloved hands and waited.

After some time had passed, Bucky wasn’t sure how long, several minutes, maybe ten, maybe longer. Bucky wondered if there was anything else he should say. He finally looked over at Yori, who remained standing, staring at his son’s photograph. 

Bucky considered whether he should just leave. Or maybe he should say more. He wasn’t sure. He’d come here intending to answer Yori’s questions and give Yori what he needed. Was this enough?

Should he apologise? Tell Yori how sorry he was? Explain… 

Explain what, though? He thought bitterly. Make excuses for himself? 

It wasn’t really me… they made me do it… I didn’t have a choice… 

A part of him wanted to apologise, to tell Yori that it wasn’t his choice to kill his son, or to kill anyone. To hear Yori acknowledge this. To hear Yori tell him he understood and that he would forgive him. He wanted to ask Yori if he’d done the right thing by telling him - he hoped he’d done the right thing. He’d been so certain of it that morning, but now he wasn’t so sure. 

The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions

But that would mean making this all about him, and this wasn’t about him. This was about Yori. About giving Yori the truth about his son. And Bucky would not now turn around and make this all about him. He would not seek comfort and reassurance from Yori. That would be wrong, and cruel. What difference did it make to Yori what Bucky’s motivations, or lack of, had been? His son was still dead, by Bucky’s hand. His son would never come back. 

Bucky pulled himself to his feet, hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should draw attention to himself first before leaving, but then decided against it. He walked towards the door and reached out for the handle. 

“Wait.” Bucky looked round as Yori called out to him, his hand on the door handle. Yori’s back was to him now, as he still stood, motionless, in front of the shrine. Yori turned to face him, his own face tear drenched, and Bucky felt dreadful, so very, very dreadful, for being here, for doing this to him. 

“Is this why you became my friend?” Yori asked.

The look on Yori’s face was heartbreaking. 

“Oh God, no,” Bucky said immediately. “No, meeting you was just a… a coincidence. I never meant… when I realised, I wanted to tell you sooner, but I…” 

I was too scared

“I’m so sorry for not telling you. I know I should have done.”

Yori nodded and turned away again. This time, it was a clear dismissal. The time had now come for him to leave.Yori had asked his questions, and now there was nothing else to say.

Bucky pulled open the door and left. 

Notes:

I'm going to be honest that part of the delay for starting Act 3 is because this chapter scares me. As I know what an important moment it is for Bucky to talk to Yori and tell him the truth about his son. And I've been so anxious about getting it right. I thought the show did well with it but, as with most people, I was disappointed at how rushed it was, squashed into the last episode. I wanted to take a bit more time with it.

There's also a reason that I've adjusted the show's timetable and put this scene at the beginning of Act 3 instead of later on, after Sam and Bucky defeat the Flag Smashers, where it belongs in the show. There's several themes running throughout Act three, one of which is Bucky's attitude towards absolution and forgiveness (hence the quote I have chosen for this Act). And there is growth and learning for Bucky that stems from this meeting with Yori, and helps on his path to healing and acceptance.

The quote I have chosen for Act 3 comes from my absolute favourite scene throughout the whole of the TV show Lost (which I maintain is the greatest television series of all time - I will die on this hill lol). It's a gorgeous piece of writing, and acting (by the great Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and when I did my yearly rewatch of the show about three years ago, I saw this scene and knew immediately that this was the quote for Act 3, as it fit so perfectly with my plans for this part of the story. I've put a link under the quote to a short clip which shows the scene, if you're interested.

Chapter 49: The Right Thing is Rarely Easy

Notes:

I am seeing Captain America Brave New World on Tuesday and I am excited! I have also seen the trailer for Thunderbolts and I am so excited for that too. More Sam and Bucky is always good, and I am looking forward to what I hope will be many many fantastic fanfictions inspired by these two films. - I won't ever spoil anything about either of these films btw so please don't be worried about reading my chapter notes. I will say nothing once I've actually seen the film, I know how worried people can get about having something spoiled for them.

The Right Thing is Rarely Easy

 

Bucky was with Christina now, in her office. He'd gone straight there from Yori's apartment. He had no concept of time while he was with Yori, and it surprised him to see, upon leaving, that he still had enough time to arrive early to his therapy session.

He felt light-headed and strangely unfocused on his walk to Christina's office, barely aware of his surroundings, walking on auto pilot. His thoughts were with Yori, with what he had just done. There was a panic bubbling up inside him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd done something very very wrong. All he could think of was the image of Yori's tear-streaked face, the look of absolute devastation on the other man's face, the look of betrayal in his eyes. All that sorrow and grief. Yori's quiet dignity.

The moment Christina joined him, even before she sat down in the chair opposite him, he launched into a confession. He spared nothing. He told her about his promise to Sam that he would tell her about Yori. He reminded her of the time he'd met Yori, the old man whose son he'd murdered. She remembered that day well for, of course, that was the day that he'd also yelled at Sam down the phone, and attacked himself with a knife so ferociously that he'd end up in hospital. He told her that the man's name was Yori Nakajima, and that he'd befriended the man and met with him many times, all the while keeping this from her.

He told her that he'd gone there that morning, first thing, and told Yori the truth about his son's death. 

When he was done he collapsed against the back of the couch, exhausted. Admitting all this to Christina felt somehow freeing. He'd been agonising about Yori for months, feeling all this guilt - not only for Yori but also for keeping Yori a secret from his therapist. It felt good to finally tell the truth to her, all those months of secrets and lies had weighed heavily on him and now they were out - it was a release.

Christina didn't interrupt him, she didn't ask for context or for any clarification. She just listened as he released all his guilt onto her. His guilt about keeping Yori a secret from her. His guilt about how he managed things with Yori all these months, for befriending the man all the while knowing that he'd killed his son. And his guilt now for what he'd just unleashed on Yori, telling him the truth and his worry that he might have inadvertently done the wrong thing.

“I wanted to go back and check on him, almost as soon as I left.” Bucky squeezed his leg with his metal hand so hard that it actually hurt. “But I thought that might just make things worse. I don't know what to do.”

He saw Christina's eyes flicker down momentarily to his leg, and he quickly let go of it, knowing that she would be making a mental note not only about hurting himself, but she would also be noticing the tension in his body, the tremor in his leg and fingers. 

“What are you worried about?” She asked. It was the first she'd spoken since he'd launched into his detailed confession. No condemnation. Just curiosity.

“Well.” Bucky felt confused. He felt that the cause for his worry was obvious. “I just told him the worst news imaginable. I'm worried for him. That this might… I don't know.” He raised his arms up in exasperation. “Push him over the edge?”

Now he'd said that out loud he felt really panicked. “Oh, God. What if he does something to himself? He might hurt himself or kill himself of something…” Worst case scenarios flooded his mind. Images of Yori in despair, Yori feeling lost and all alone. Yori attempting to take his own life… 

He stood up. “I should go check on him. I did this to him. I need to…”

Christina raised a hand and told him, in a very calm and even tone, to sit back down. 

“James, I need you to take a deep breath.” Her voice was gentle but firm and Bucky, despite his anxiety, felt compelled to obey. “You're panicking right now and I want you to slow down a second. Just breathe and feel the ground under your feet.”

He exhaled shakily and, suddenly feeling very drained, sat back down. 

“You're getting yourself worked up,” she told him. She pushed the water jug over towards him and he automatically poured himself a glass with shaking hands. 

“Let me make a suggestion,” Christina said. “I'd like to go, right now, and report this back - “

“You told me you weren't going to report back on me any more,” Bucky burst out immediately. 

“I know,” she said. “I'm asking your permission.”

Bucky fell silent, his protest dying on his lips.

“You are very worried about Yori,” Christina said. “You want to make sure he's okay after you gave him some very unsettling news.”

Unsettling wasn't quite the word that Bucky would use to describe it, he thought. Catastrophic. Traumatic. Distressing. But Christina was validating him, and so he didn't object.

“And you're absolutely correct,” she continued, “that this kind of news can cause people some emotional distress. And someone should check on him. But you also know this can't be you. Now, I can ask someone to go, right now, to meet him. Someone who can make sure he's okay, answer any questions he might have, and make sure he has everything he needs. If you let me.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah… yeah I think… I think you should do that.”

He told Christina Yori's address and telephone number. And then she left the room, leaving him staring blankly at the books on her bookcase. After a short while one of her colleagues, or perhaps an employee, joined him and they sat together in the room in silence. Bucky imagined that Christina probably wasn't very happy at the thought of leaving him unsupervised while she was out of the room. 

Time passed, he watched the minutes pass excruciatingly slowly on the clock. It was probably a good thing Christina had made someone sit in with him, because he hated waiting. If he'd been left alone he'd probably have just jumped up and left, rushed back to Yori's apartment and done something he'd probably very much regret later on. It didn't seem possible that he could make things worse for Yori, but he was certain that somehow he'd be able to manage it. 

And then Christina returned, releasing her relieved looking employee, and taking her place opposite him. 

“Someone's on their way right now to go and meet with him. They spoke to him on the phone and he seemed well. Confused… but well. And he's agreed to meet with someone.”

Bucky felt relief wash over him. “Thank God,” he murmered.  He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the couch. 

Christina said nothing, just let him sit with his feelings of relief.

“Don't ever let me do anything like this ever again,” he said finally. “Befriending a relative, or a friend, of someone I've…” he shook his head. “I can't do this again.”

“I'm surprised and flattered that you think I have the ability from stopping you from doing anything once you've put your mind to it.” Christina said.

He gave her a shaky smile, feeling reassured by her attempt at light humour. He took another sip of water. It felt like he was slowly coming back to himself.

“I'm curious,” Christina said, softly with no judgement in her tone, “why you didn't come to talk to me about this first, before you went to see Yori.”

Bucky stared at his cup, avoiding eye contact with her, and feeling his guilt rise up once again. She didn't sound angry, or condemnatory, but he felt like he was being told off.

“Because you would have told me not to go,” Bucky mumbled.

“I think that, had you told me about this, that I would want to talk to you about Yori.. Explore ways of doing this that are… perhaps… more appropriate.”

He could see that Christina was choosing her words carefully, trying not to sound like she was telling him off. It made him feel worse. 

Christina leaned forward, her gaze steady. “What you did today was brave and honest. But it placed both you and Yori in an emotionally volatile situation without any support. That's not the way to approach a situation like this.”

Even though her tone was steady and without any trace of judgement, Bucky still felt chastened and guilty. 

“I didn't want to lose the opportunity to do this myself,” he explained. “I knew this was the right thing to do, and for the first time in my life I just wanted to do the right thing.” He cleared his throat, trying to cover for how much his voice shook.

“I believe that,” Christina said. “But tell me - how do you know it was the right thing?” 

“Do you think it wasn't?” Bucky suddenly felt on the defensive.

“That's not what I said.” Christina's voice remained calm. “I asked you what made you feel so certain that it was.”

Bucky thought for a moment. “I was stuck for the longest time about what I could do best for Yori. I thought that maybe I should just vanish. Block his number. He doesn't know where I live. I could just vanish from his life and he'd never know why. But that didn't seem right. I could also have just told you, and asked you to send someone round to talk to him, but that didn't seem right either. Those things would have been easy but they wouldn't have been right. The right thing is rarely easy. I knew that seeing him myself, talking to him and telling him the truth, was the right thing because it was hard.”

Christina nodded. “I imagine it was very hard for you. And you've  been focusing all this time now on how Yori is. I want to know how you are.”

Bucky blinked, surprised. “I'm fine… I guess.” 

Christina just gave him a look. It spoke volumes.

“Well, I was just worried about him,” Bucky explained. “I'm just glad he's okay.”

“Talking to Yori about his son,” Christina said, “must have been a very distressing experience for you.”

Bucky shook his head, not quite trusting himself to speak, because in all honesty it had been a she was right. It had been a distressing experience. An immensely distressing experience. And Christina, through recognising it, and raising it, was starting to bring it all back to him. 

“I just wanted…” Bucky felt his voice crack, and started again. “I just wanted to help him. To undo some of the harm I've done, as impossible as it is. I don't know… I wanted to make amends. Make things right.”

“There are ways of doing this kind of thing properly,” Christina said. “You're putting yourself into a terrible situation by going off on your own and doing this without any support.”

Bucky wiped at his eyes. “I know. Like I said, I won’t do this again.”

“It's not just because of Yori,” Christina said. “It's about you too. You harm yourself by doing this, do you see that?”

Bucky remembered what Sam said on the docks to him.

 

It's keeping you entrenched in your guilt, constantly exposing yourself to all those negative feelings

 

“People are unpredictable,” Christina continued. “You can't always anticipate how they will respond to you. Can I remind you about what happened with Tony Stark in Siberia?”

Bucky's head shot up. “That's a completely different situation. That was all completely outside of my control, it was Zemo who set all that up. And anyway, Yori wouldn't attack me. It's not the same at all.”

“That's not the point,” she said. “I don't think Yori would try to harm you, like Tony Stark did. The point is that you can't plan for human emotion, you can't anticipate how people will respond to you. In stressful circumstances people can react very very badly. And you could find yourself in the centre of a very harmful situation which you never intended to cause.”

“I know it was a mistake, letting myself get involved with Yori,” Bucky said. “Talking to him today, was me trying to fix that mistake. I don't know why… but I just keep doing the wrong thing. Making mistakes. All the time. And I was trying to correct that today.”

“It's human to make mistakes, James.” Christina pointed out. “And you are human. With everything that entails.”

“I don't always feel very human,” Bucky muttered. “It's hard to feel human when you've spent decades murdering people.”

“But you are,” she insisted. “And this just reinforces that. Human are fallible. We do things wrong. We make mistakes. No-one is perfect, and neither are you. Today you went to Yori with good intentions. You went with the intention to do the right thing for him. To give him the answers that he's been wanting for twenty years.”

 

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Bucky thought, not for the first time that day. 

 

“And that's exactly what you did.” Christina said. “You gave him those answers. You did that, for him, at the expense of your own emotional wellbeing.”

I suppose I did, Bucky thought. But he'd been trying to fix a mess that he himself had created. If he'd never allowed himself to befriend Yori, then there'd have been no need to tell Yori the truth about his son. Of course, the best thing for Yori would have been if his son had never died in the first place, if Bucky had never been the Winter Soldier. But that was a dark trail of thoughts that never went to a good place. Because of course it always went back to that didn't it? Everything led back to the Winter Soldier, to Siberia, to all the bad choices he'd made that led him there, and everything that he'd done wrong. 

He felt tears prick the corners of his eyes, but it wasn't guilt or sorrow that was causing them this time. It was a different feeling entirely, one that he hasn't used to feeling and it took him a while to pinpoint what it actually was.

 

Anger

 

That was the feeling that was building up inside him now. Bubbling up from somewhere deep within. 

“God, I feel so angry, Christina,” he said, “when I think of what my life has been. I just feel so…”

He raised his hands and shoulders in a shrug, and let out a noise of frustration because he couldn't think of the words that would best describe how he was feeling.

 

Frustrated? Desperate? Lost?

And anger too. Lots of it.

 

“The trail of horror and devastation that I have unleashed upon so many people for so many years. Yori is just the tip of the iceberg. How can I… How is it possible to move forward from this? How do I make sense of my life? How do I do it?”

He was almost pleading with her now, begging her for answers that he felt only she could give him.

“Anger is a completely appropriate emotion to have,” Christina said. “I'm angry too actually, but for different reasons than you, I think.”

“What do you mean by that?” He asked.

“You are angry with yourself,” Christina said. “Because despite everything we've been talking about all these months, you still blame yourself for everything that has happened in your life. When you say you're angry, I know that you're directing this anger towards the person who you used to be, rather than towards the people who do deserve your anger.”

Bucky remained silent. He didn't like these kinds of conversations. He didn't like it when Christina tried to get him to gain sympathy - no empathy - for his past self. It always felt wrong, like he was trying to evade responsibility. 

 

Be kind to your past self. He did the best he could.

 

But it had never been good enough. 

Not getting a response, Christina carried on. “I'll tell you who I'm angry at. I'm angry with Zola, Lukin, Fennhoff, and all those others. The people who took a good, kind, brave young man and treated him so appallingly for so many years.”

 

James, you were horrifically abused for seventy years

 

“That's not what happ…” Bucky couldn't even finish the sentence, because he knew he was lying to himself. That is exactly what happened. He knew it. He'd told Christina before:

 

They tore me to pieces and built the Winter Soldier from my broken remains

 

“And it makes me angry,” Christina said, “that because of what those people did, that same man is here in front of me now, taking on the burden of all that blame, all that guilt.”

“I am angry at them.” Bucky was shocked by the force with which the words erupted from him.  “I'm angry at Alexander Pearce, who gave me the orders that led me to kill Yori's son. I’m angry at Colonel Karpov, who gave me the orders to kill Howard Stark. More names than I can remember, I'm angry at all of them. I'm also angry with Zola, Fennhoff and Lukin, for taking my control, my name, my memories and my life away from me.” 

“But you are also angry at yourself.” It wasn't a question.

“Yes,” Bucky admitted. “I try not to be, but I can't stop it. I can't stop blaming myself. It's why I went to Yori today, isn't it? Not just to give him answers or closure, but because I needed to admit my guilt to him. Because I wanted forgiveness, or absolution.” He traced the swirly pattern on the couch with a finger. “But I didn't get it. I didn't even ask for it. How could I ask someone for their forgiveness for murdering their son? How could I even begin to deserve that forgiveness?”

There was a long pause. Bucky continued to stare down at his finger which continued to trace over the pattern on the couch. He felt low, really really low. He felt like a failure, that even after all this time in therapy he was still unable to reach the place that Christina was trying to get him too. 

How could he expect forgiveness from someone else, when he couldn't even forgive himself?

“James,” Christina said gently, “I want you to recognise that you’ve done what you can for Yori today. You made sure someone would check in on him. You made sure he wasn’t alone. That was the right thing to do.”

Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Yeah… yeah, I guess.” But the guilt still sat heavy in his chest, an ache that wouldn’t fade.

“And you’re not done,” Christina added. “There will be more to process. But for now, I think you need a break from punishing yourself. We can shelve Yori for today and let’s talk about something else. Why don’t you tell me about your weekend with Sam?”

Bucky blinked. The shift in topic threw him for a moment, but then—unexpectedly—the tension in his shoulders eased. “Sam?”

“Mhm,” Christina said, a small knowing smile tugging at her lips. “You were very excited to go and see him, if I remember correctly.”

Bucky hesitated for only a second before he found himself smiling too, despite himself. He let out an awkward laugh, which helped reduce the tension further. “Yes, I was.”

And just like that, the weight of Yori didn’t vanish, but it became lighter.

The sudden, abrupt change of topic from Yori to Sam took him by surprise but he could immediately tell why she had done this. Bringing up Sam elicited an immediate and very noticeable change in his mood. He sat up straighter, his muscles relaxed, and he couldn't prevent his smile, the gleam in his eyes, the enthusiasm in his voice, as he immediately launched into an animated retelling of his weekend with Sam, Sarah, Cass and AJ.

His feelings about Yori, his guilt and anger were still there beneath the surface, but he latched gratefully onto Christina's change of topic allowing her to skillfully redirect his emotions.  

Bucky told Christina about helping Sam and Sarah fix the boat, the family dinner, playing with Cass and AJ, throwing the shield with Sam. How happy he was that Sam now accepted the shield and would be taking on the mantle of Captain America, how proud he was. He told Christina how peaceful it had been there, how kind and welcoming Sarah had been.

“Sarah sounds lovely,” Christina said. “You must have made a good impression on her.”

“I was surprised that she would want me to be alone with her children,” Bucky admitted. “She knew exactly who I was, and she encouraged it.”

“How did that make you feel?” Christina asked. “To be trusted like that?”

“I mean, it was fine,” Bucky said. “I had fun with the boys, we - “

Christina raised a hand. “Let's just rewind there a little. I want you to think properly about how that made you feel. Not just say ‘’fine’ but really think about it.”

Bucky let out a sigh; he was never particularly good at describing his feelings to her, preferring to just say ‘’it was good' or ‘it was fine.’ Occasionally, like she was doing now, she would push for more, and it always felt awkward for some reason. 

“Well,” he said. “I guess I felt kind of… touched?” His voice raised, like he was asking for her approval. She gave him a nod and that gave him the confidence to continue. “Sarah, Sam and the boys, they all made me feel normal. Like I was just a normal visitor, I guess.” He shrugged. “It made me feel good. Accepted.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Christina said. 

Bucky nodded. “It really was. To be honest, a big part of me never wanted to come back here. I could have stayed there forever.”

“Maybe you'll go back,” Christina suggested.

“I think I might. Sarah invited me back.”

“What about Sam?” Christina asked. 

Bucky felt his face flush despite himself, remembering his conversation with Christina on Friday about Sam, about his feelings for Sam, and his desire to tell Sam how he felt. 

“Did something happen with Sam?” Christina asked, clearly noticing Bucky's response to her mention of Sam's name.

“Nothing happened,” Bucky said quickly. “I mean… not like what you're suggesting.”  It felt like his face was on fire now. 

“Did you get the chance to speak to him?” Christina pressed. “About your feelings?”

“Well yes,” Bucky said, still feeling incredibly awkward. “But also no. I…”

He ran a hand through his hair. Despite their conversation on Friday, when he'd admitted to Christina how he felt about Sam, (even though she'd clearly already known), he still was finding it incredibly difficult to talk to her about this. A hang up, he supposed, from the time before when speaking about another man in such a way was absolutely something he did not do. Could not do. 

He pushed through the embarrassment because, just as it was on Friday when they'd last spoken about Sam, he wanted Christina's help. And it suddenly occurred to him that Christina might be able to shed some light on the ‘not ever but not yet' conversation. 

“I may have left it until the last minute to tell him,” Bucky said. “So there wasn't much time to properly talk it through.” 

“What did you tell him?” She asked.

“Well, I told him that I had feelings for him. And I asked him if there was any chance he would feel the same way,” Bucky said, the words pouring out of him in a rush, before he could lose his nerve. 

“And what did he say?”

“He said…” Bucky took a pause to think, to make sure he quoted Sam correctly. “neither of us is what the other person needs right now. And then he said, I'm not saying not ever, I'm saying not yet.”

Christina considered this. “What do you think he meant by that?”

Bucky did a poor job of hiding his disappointment. “I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“I'm not a mind reader, James,” she pointed out. “I can't tell you what Sam was thinking. But I am curious to know what you think he meant.”

“I'm assuming that it's Sam's tactful way of telling me that I'm too crazy for him at the moment, and I need to get myself to a better place first,” Bucky said. “And I wouldn't blame him for thinking that, given how badly I've been treating him.”

He saw Christina's brow furrow, and knew immediately that he'd said something wrong. 

“I'm going to put to one side your description of yourself as crazy,” Christina said, “because I don't want to derail the conversation, but we will be coming back to that another time.”

Bucky cringed, but didn't challenge her. He knew that was a slip-up he shouldn't have made. Christina didn't approve of words like ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’. 

Christina studied him carefully, and he fidgeted in his seat, feeling uncomfortable. “You're focusing a lot on what you think is wrong with you.” 

Bucky let out a nervous laugh. “What do you mean?”

“Sam didn't say he couldn't be in a relationship with you because you're not good enough for him,” she reminded him. “He said neither of us are what the other needs right now. So that would mean that he thinks there's something he needs to address as well.”

Bucky blinked. It hadn't occurred to him until this moment that Sam might actually mean there was something for him to fix about himself. It was clearly about Bucky. 

“Why do you think Sam thinks he's not ready?” Christina pushed further for a reply.

“Well…” Bucky looked around the room helplessly. “I… I don't know.”

“I think he was just being polite,” Bucky said eventually. “Sam's just… well he's perfect just as he is.”

Christina gave him a knowing look. “I know you're viewing Sam through a very positive lense right now, but he's not perfect. And he clearly knows that.”

Bucky opened his mouth, about to challenge her. But she carried on before he could say anything. “I'm not saying he's flawed in a bad way. I'm saying he's human. Like you. He has doubts, fears and his own struggles - just as you do. Just as we all do. Is there anything that you can think of that you'd like Sam to do differently?”

Bucky shook his head, adamantly sticking to his guns. He was done with criticising Sam, he'd done enough of that over the last few months. From now on, in his eyes, Sam could do no wrong. 

But what Christina said had struck something in him, despite his protestations. Bucky had been so focused on what he lacked, that he'd not considered for a moment that Sam might need time for his own reasons.

“You know Sam much better than I do,” Christina said. “But I can see that Sam acknowledges that there are things he needs to work on himself. Take a minute to think about Sam, about what you know about him, and tell me what you think that might be.” 

Bucky did exactly what she suggested. He thought about Sam. Sam who was good, decent and kind, hardworking. Focused on helping others, like Isaiah and like all the veterans he had helped to support. Stepping up to take on a role bequeathed to him by another, a role he never wanted in the first place but was taking on because he felt it was the right thing to do. 

Sam was a family man, he thought. He loved his sister and he loved his nephews like they were his own children. Sam had had at least one significant relationship in his life, Riley. What they had was ‘the real deal' - that's what Sam said. And that's what he was looking for now. Not a fling, like all his other relationships had been - but something that could go the distance. 

Could that be it?

Bucky felt his heart beat pick up speed as he considered this. It felt like he was galloping towards the correct answer. Could it be that Sam had his own relationship hang ups that made him doubt his own abilities to enter into a long term relationship? 

Sam had said something about not wanting one of them to end up with a broken heart. Bucky assumed that Sam had been talking about himself, about Bucky fucking up and breaking Sam's heart, but no - what if Sam was worried about his own ability to manage a relationship. The conversation he'd briefly overheard between Sam and Sarah in the kitchen came to his mind. 

 

It's always complicated. Every time. You bring home someone really nice to meet me and the boys and it never goes anywhere because It's always complicated. 

 

What if it wasn't about Sam having misgivings about being in a relationship with Bucky. It was about Sam having misgivings about being able to manage a relationship with anyone?

 

It's always the wrong person at the wrong time Sam had said yesterday. It never lasts. 

 

He looked up at Christina, his heart still racing. He had the answer, he was sure of it. She looked at him expectedly.

“He struggles with relationships,” Bucky said. “He's worried he'll mess up and hurt me.” 

“That seems very possible,” Christina said. “Lots of people find it hard to commit in relationships for various reasons.”

Bucky let out a slow breath. As sure as he was that he was right, he still wanted confirmation. 

“Do you think that's what he meant?” Bucky asked.

“I don't know,” Christina said. “We’re only speculating and I don't know enough about Sam to tell you either way. But you know how you can find out?”

Bucky sighed, knowing where this was going, and had to hold back the urge to roll his eyes. 

“By asking him.” He felt like a school boy being told off again. It was funny how often she made him feel like that.  

Christina nodded. 

“But it's good, right? What he said? It means he's…” Bucky searched for the right words. “... he has to be feeling something, otherwise he would have just shot me down. But he didn't. He didn't say no. He said not yet. So he must be on the same page?”

He thought about this. “Maybe not the same page, but the same book at least. I'm just several chapters ahead, I suppose. Sam's still pottering around in the prologue.”

He felt uncertain and looked to Christina as though she could magically remove all doubts and questions and just make everything right - like she could solve all the mysteries of the universe. “What do you think?”

“I think you should feel proud of yourself,” Christina said. “I’m proud of you. You shared with Sam how you feel and that's not an easy thing to do.”

“I did do that,” Bucky said, feeling suddenly uplifted. 

He had done that, and it had been hard. Not as hard as talking to Yori had been, but openly telling Sam that he had feelings for him - he still couldn't believe that he had managed to pluck up the courage to do so.

And Sam hadn't shut him down. Sam hadn't let him down gently, trying to spare his feelings. Sam hadn't said things like it's not you, it's me. But instead Sam had given him reason to hope and Sam was not the kind of person who would give Bucky false hope. 

“So what do I do now?… just wait until Sam feels he's ready?”

“Well, I can think of lots of things we can do while you wait for Sam to catch up in this book of yours.” Christina's lips twitched almost into a smile. “Let's not just sit around waiting. You don't have to put your life on hold just because something isn't happening right now. You keep moving on, keep healing. Learn to be kind to yourself, to take care of yourself. So that whenever Sam is ready - you can meet him as the best version of yourself. Not just for Sam, but for you.”

Bucky sat with that for a moment. He could do those things. He had already begun those things. Taking care of himself. Reading those affirmations Christina had given him. Actually eating properly, drinking, trying to get real sleep. It wasn't perfect, but he was trying. And he would carry on.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I'll do that.”

Notes:

I am very aware that Bucky needs to look after himself not just to be the best person for Sam - he needs to do this for himself. But Christina is a pragmatist and if Bucky is motivated by Sam right now in order to take care of himself, then she'll take that as a win (for now) and will address it later. He's doing the right things, his reasons just need some work. I just wanted to clarify this so you know it's not an oversight on my part. Bucky will make all these important realisations. He's just not quite there yet.

Chapter 50: My Friends Call me Bucky

Notes:

Wishing Bucky a happy birthday today!

My Friends Call Me Bucky

 

“I've been writing in my new notebook.” Bucky was keen to make sure Christina knew that he was following her advice. “The one you gave me on Friday. I filled it out over the weekend. I forgot to bring it with me today, though.”

For a moment he felt a mild panic that she might take issue with this. Writing down his self care activities had been a task Christina had been consistently setting for him since the very beginning of his therapy; a task he had always struggled with. Since Friday, when Christina had finally managed to drag a confession from him about wanting a relationship with Sam, he'd actually felt motivated to complete this task in a way he had never done before and he had nothing to show Christina today to prove this. 

He'd been so focused that morning on his confession to Yori, planning and preparing for it, that he'd barely spared a thought for the therapy session that would take place afterwards. 

“I'd be happy to go through it with you on Wednesday,” Christina said, without any trace of judgement or disappointment in her tone. Bucky felt his mild panic settle back down again. He felt a little foolish for expecting anything else. She'd always said, from the beginning, to just do his best. 

Bucky's feelings about Christina had been quite the roller coaster ever since the very beginning. He'd pushed back against her so hard when they'd first met, determined to be sullen and uncooperative, even though he'd always known that she was there just to do a job. He'd viewed her as the enemy, someone who was determined to make his life as unpleasant and difficult as possible, sending babysitters round to check on him, and constantly reminding him of all the things he would rather have forgotten about.

But as the months had passed, those intense feelings of resentment and frustration had started to ebb away. Looking back, he wasn't really sure at what point his distrust and suspicion of her started to lessen. It was more of a gradual process. Small things that she said or did, unexpected things, that made her feel like less of an enemy and more of an ally. Such as the time he kissed Sam and she promised not to report back about it, or the time she said she wouldn't report back about Brock Rumlow. He'd never had a guarantee that she'd not reported these things back, but there was nothing to say that she had. 

Half a year ago he never would have imagined he'd be asking her for relationship advice, but here he was. And the strangest thing about it was how it didn't feel strange to be speaking to her about these things at all.  

And today, when he'd arrived in a state about Yori, she'd known all the right things to say to him to help him through it. And when it had got too much, she'd redirected the conversation away from Yori, to instead allow Bucky to focus on more positive things. And he was so grateful to her for that. 

Bucky nodded, and then his eyes flickered up to the clock that hung on the wall above where Christina sat. He'd been here a long time. Christina never really stuck to a time limit for their sessions and this wasn't the first time he'd wondered if she actually did work with anyone else. 

“Will you…” he twisted his hands together in his lap, “will you update me later about Yori?” he asked. “Just let me know that he's okay?”

“Of course I will,” Christina reassured him.

“I won't speak to him again,” Bucky said. “I know that I need to stay away from him. But I know I'll be thinking about him, and I'll worry about him.”

He'd already blocked Yori's number and then deleted it from his phone, along with all the messages they'd sent to each other. He could still remember Yori's number, but deleting everything made the separation feel more real, and permanent. 

“But if you tell me he's okay,” Bucky said, “it'll help.”

If Christina told him that Yori was fine, he would believe her. And it would quell the urge he knew he'd get to seek Yori out again himself, to make sure the other man was all right. 

“Yori is being looked after as we speak,” Christina reassured him. “He is having all his questions answered, and if he needs anything it will be provided for him. I'm not worried about Yori. I am, however, thinking about whether I need to be worried about you.”

Bucky avoided making eye contact with her. He could easily guess where this was going. In the past, when he'd been in states of emotional distress, he hadn't exactly always managed it very well. The self-harming. The drug use. Along with other ‘maladaptive coping strategies' as Christina called them. And this had led to Christina siccing babysitters on him, regular checks in and, in more extreme cases, ‘suicide watch' (although she never called it that). 

“What do you think?” Christina asked. “Do I need to be worried about you?”

Bucky bit his lower lip. He couldn't really deny that she probably did have cause to be worried about him. The very first time he'd met Yori Bucky had harmed himself so severely that he'd ended up in hospital. And Bucky also couldn't deny that meeting with Yori today had greatly affected him. 

But he really didn't want to wind back the clock several months, it felt like such a regression. He didn't want to have people checking in on him, sitting in his apartment and watching his every move. Like he was some specimen in a lab. It made his stomach twist to think of It. It was suffocating. It had always been horrible and he'd hated every minute of it. 

But if he told Christina he was fine, she'd never believe him. And then she'd be even more worried about him. She knew him too well to be fobbed off like that. He couldn't dismiss her concerns entirely. 

He let out a deep breath. “I'm not feeling too great,” he admitted. “I'll admit to that. But I'm not going to do anything dangerous or stupid. I don't need… I don't need anyone to check on me. I'll be fine. I am fine. I'll manage.” 

He chanced a glance over at Christina and, from the look on her face, he wasn't sure that he was doing a good job of convincing her. 

“And when you're on your own later?” Christina asked. “At home. And you start thinking about Yori, worrying about him and feeling guilty. How will you manage that?”

Bucky felt a panic start to re-emerge. He was failing to convince her. She was going send her babysitters round to him again, he was certain of it and he couldn't bear it. He was doing better, moving forwards. Maybe in circles yes, but always moving forwards, and the thought of jumping backwards so far made him feel sick. 

He forced himself to remain calm. 

“I'll write in my notebook,” he said quickly,. “I'll use some of your strategies, focus on other things, go for a walk, read or watch TV. I'll call your emergency number for help. I'll ring Sam, I'll…”

He felt a sudden burst of inspiration. “What if…” he said, forcing his voice to sound less panicked and more reasonable. “You, or someone, calls me later. And if I don't answer… or I don't sound okay… then you send someone over to check on me. Just… I don't want… I don't want strangers in my home anymore. If it's needed, fine. But it's not, I promise it's not.”

He tried to sound firm, certain, sure of himself. 

To his immense relief, Christina nodded. “Okay.” She sounded thoughtful. “I'll call you myself this evening and we'll have a chat and see how you're doing.”

Bucky sank back against the cushions, relief rushing through him. Thank God. 

“I want you to hear that I've noticed that you've called me in the past when you've needed help.” Christina added. “And I trust you to call me and tell me if you find yourself in such a situation again.”

Bucky nodded. “Of course I will,” he hastened to reassure her. And he wasn't just saying it, he really meant it. He'd been in dire straits before and he'd rung her. Back during the bad times, which he never wanted to go back to. The times when he'd been desperately trying to think of ways to circumvent the block on his brain that stopped him from being able to kill himself. Back when he'd hidden knives in his apartment so they couldn't be found when she sent people over so he always had tools with which to hurt himself. He wasn't doing those things anymore. 

And when he had rung her, to ask for help, she'd never judged him for it, just praised him for asking for help. And he was glad he'd done so, because now she trusted him to do it again. And he would because he, in turn, trusted her. 

They spoke a bit more, exploring healthier coping strategies should he find himself stuck inside a negative thought spiral. That if he was struggling that some maladaptive coping strategies, such as smoking, are far better to engage in than others, like self-harming or other more damaging self destructive behaviours. Harm reduction she called it, and it wasn't the first time she'd used that phrase with him. It was a concept that he'd always found slightly difficult to wrap his head around; it was like being given permission to fail but in the least damaging way. 

He listened, and he paid attention and it must have been noticeable because finally, at last, she was satisfied and deemed him ready to be dismissed for the day. 

At the door he paused. 

“Thank you,” he said. He felt really awkward, but he wanted to show some gratitude towards her for her trust in him. To show her that it meant something to him, to be listened to. To show appreciation to her for how she’d managing his distress about Yori earlier. He didn't elaborate. 

“You're welcome,” she said simply. “See you on Wednesday. Take care, James.”

“You can…” he cut himself off abruptly. 

He'd been about to say,

You can call me Bucky

A privilege only ever extended to those who he thought of as his friends. A name that was only his to offer to people. Steve, obviously, along with some other school friends. And then later those who'd he'd grown close to during the war - Dugan, Dernier, Jones and the others, Howard Stark. Nowadays there was only Sam who called him that, and Sam's family now of course. Walker had called him Bucky, but that didn't count as they were not, and would never be, friends and he'd not been given permission to do so. 

His feelings about Christina were complicated, but there was no way he was going to offer his therapist to call him by the name only his closest friends used. But it had started to come out, an automatic response to certain people who he deemed close enough, and trustworthy enough, to be able to use the special nickname that Steve himself had come up with when they were children. 

It's a strange kind of relationship, that between a therapist and client, to share everything with someone, personal details, to have trust in someone, but to not be a friend. And there is a barrier there, a boundary, and he was not willing to cross it. 

But he'd almost let her in. 

So he stopped himself from saying it, as soon as he realised what he was about to say. And as he did so a memory slammed into his mind so forcefully that if he hadn't already cut himself off it probably would have prevented him from finishing the sentence anyway.

 

My name's James. I think… I think my friends call me Bucky. You can call me Bucky too, if you want.

 

It seemed innocuous enough. How many times had he made that offer to people, after all? But something about the memory made his head reel. And then it faded out, almost as quickly as it had come. And then he was back, standing ready to leave by the door, mid sentence, arm outstretched reaching for the handle. 

“What is it?” Christina's brow was furrowed, a look of concern on her face. 

“Err…” Bucky struggled to gather up a coherent thought. “I… remembered…” he didn't want to tell her he'd just had some kind of strange flashback. She'd probably make a big deal of it, and he also didn't want to admit that he'd considered asking her to call him ‘Bucky’. It felt too personal. 

“My notebook!” He said suddenly. “I remembered I also wrote names, a lot of names the other night. People linked to Hydra. I wanted to give them to you, to pass on. I'll send them to you later.”

He quickly pulled the door open and left, before she could press him any further. He'd had enough of that room for one day. 

 

On the way back to his apartment he stopped off to purchase some cigarettes. He had a feeling he'd need them and Christina had pretty much given him permission to smoke if he felt the urge to do something ‘maladaptive’. He wasn't necessarily going to smoke, but it made him feel better to know that he could and he was currently all out as he'd been spending so much time with Sam and hadn't been buying any, 

A message from Sam pinged on his phone as Bucky neared his apartment. 

Have you seen the news?

Bucky frowned. He hated those words. No matter how much time passed he always felt a slight panic whenever someone mentioned the news to him. A small part of him always had that sense of dread that it was something to do with him, with the Winter Soldier, something dug up from the past, something he didn't even remember doing. Some crime resurfaced. More people who he'd harmed.  

No. What is it? 

Bucky sped up his walking as he waited for Sam to respond. He'd get back home and put the television on straight away and see what it was that was happening. Maybe it was something to do with the Flag Smashers, with Karli. 

Walker's disciplinary tribunal took place this morning. It's all over the news.

Bucky rushed up the stairs to his apartment. 

It all seemed very quick. The incident with the Flag Smashers happened less than a week ago. Bucky could viscerally recall the shield covered with blood, the decapitated body of the surrendering, unarmed man at Walker's feet, the terrified onlookers holding up their phones, capturing every detail. 

Bucky turned on the TV as soon as he entered his apartment, throwing himself down onto the couch. He turned to WHIH world news.

There was Walker on the screen, his arm in a sling. Must be for show, Bucky thought, there's no way his arm wasn't healed by now. That at least suggested that Walker hadn't told anyone about the serum, that was good. Walker was storming away, out of sight of the cameras, journalists shouting at him to give a statement. A banner ran below the clip:

Walker Disgraced: Stripped of Captain America Title.

“We are following major developments in Washington where John Walker, the former Captain America, has just been formally stripped of his title and dishonourably discharged from military service following a high profile tribunal earlier today” The news reporter, Christine Everhart, said. 

Bucky felt his phone buzz in his hand, someone was calling him. Probably Sam. He ignored it.

“Walker was seen leaving the Department of Defense moments ago, visibly agitated and refusing to answer questions from reporters. This comes after international outrage over his lethal use of force against a foreign national, an incident that was recorded and widely circulated on social media. Our correspondent, Taylor Carson, is live at the scene.”

Taylor Carson appeared very excited as he reported on what had just occured. “The tension here is palpable. Just moments ago John Walker exited the department of defense looking visibly angry. Inside sources tell us that Walker remained defiant during the tribunal, arguing that he 'did what needed to be done' and insisting that he was following orders. However the panel was reportedly unswayed, informing him that he was being stripped of his title of Captain America, dishonourably discharged, and would not receive retirement benefits. Walker, we're told, did not take the news well.”

The clip played again of Walker leaving the building, pushing past the throngs of journalists and ignoring their questions. He looked angry, yes, but there was something else in his expression that Bucky recognised because he saw it on his own every time he looked into the mirror. 

Haunted. 

And he felt a pang of empathy for Walker despite everything that had happened between them in Latvia. Walker was a git, yes, but his best friend and military comrade had been violently killed in front of him. Walker was experiencing public humiliation, his future was destroyed, he was experiencing grief and loss, and now being abandoned by his own country who he had faithfully and exemplary served for decades. 

Bucky knew what that felt like. How could he not feel empathy for that?

Bucky's phone buzzed again and he looked at the screen. Sam was trying to ring him. He was about to answer but then a familiar face showed up on the television screen. The secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross. Bucky stilled, leaving Sam's call to ring out for a second time. Ross was the one who'd incarcerated him in the Raft, who had questioned him, and who had later, begrudgingly, set everything in motion for him to be released from the Raft after he'd received his presidential pardon.  

“John Walker's actions were reckless, unauthorised, and directly undermined the diplomatic stability we work so hard to maintain,” Ross said. “The United States cannot and will not condone the extrajudicial killing of foreign nationals, especially when those actions threaten our standing with global allies. We recognise that Walker was operating under extreme circumstances, but this administration has a duty to hold our operatives accountable. The Captain America mantle is not just a title, it is a symbol, and that symbol has been tarnished. Today's decision is a necessary step towards restoring trust, both at home and abroad. We are reviewing additional measures to ensure that the Captain America mantle continues to represent justice and responsibility.”

Bucky clenched his hands into fists without realising he had done so.

There it was. 

The government still thought they had a say in it. They expected to maintain control over who to give the shield to, over who would be Captain America. Like it was some military rank to be assigned. That decision was not theirs to make. Not Secretary Ross, not the President, not even Colonel Rhodes. That decision belonged to one person only - to Sam. 

And Sam had already  made his decision.

The news reporter was now interviewing a retired Colonel, asking about the tribunal and whether it went far enough or whether Walker would face court-martial or criminal charges. 

“One thing is certain,” Christine Everhart said, “this is far from over. Walker may be out as Captain America, but there is growing speculation over who, if anyone, will carry the shield next. The question remains: what happens now?”

Bucky muted the television and stared at it blankly, but his mind was racing. So much had happened in so short a space of time. And the cogs of the government were turning, looking for a new Captain America to take over from Walker. They probably already had a candidate in mind, ready and waiting in the wings to step in. What if someone had already reached out to Sam this morning to ask about the shield? 

And if they had, what did Sam tell them? 

Feeling slightly apprehensive, Bucky returned the call to Sam. 

“You watched it?” Sam asked. 

Bucky looked back at the television, which was now displaying opinion pieces from social media. 

 

The government betrayed our hero! John Walker deserved better

Captain America cancelled? The truth about Walker's so-called ‘disgrace’

A political scapegoat or necessary justice?

John Walker: The man who destroyed Captain America's Legacy

Captain America's legacy in crisis - can the shield recover? Who will be our next Captain America?

 

Bucky dragged his eyes away from the television.

“I didn't expect this to happen so quickly,” he said. 

“It's not so unusual given the circumstances,” Sam said. “Such incidents require a quick response before they create international diplomatic disasters.”

Bucky barely heard him. He didn't really care about that. What he cared about was the speculation about who would be the next Captain America and what Sam had done, if anything, about it. But he didn't want to put pressure on Sam.

“They're talking about what happens next.” Bucky licked his lips. “About Captain America. Who it will be.”

“I've not changed my mind, Bucky.” Sam's voice was firm. “They're not getting the shield from me. No matter what.”

Bucky closed his eyes, feeling a mixture of relief and pride but also something else. Concern. Watching the news report, all the focus on Captain American's Legacy, and the speculation about the next Captain America - it suddenly hit him how much of an uphill battle Sam faced ahead of him to be accepted. Especially if he did not get the government's approval. He felt a deep, aching protectiveness that he wasn't sure how to express.

The government wouldn't make it easy. The public wouldn't make it easy. 

“I've already had a request to speak to the President,” Sam said. “Can you believe it? The President of the United States has asked to have a phone call with me.” 

Bucky felt an anxiety deep inside him. “They’re going to put you through Hell, Sam.”

“Look, you hardly need to tell me that.” Sam laughed, but it sounded slightly strained, which increased Bucky's concern all the more. All the pressure Sam would be under, all the attention, the spotlight, the criticism. Walker had bent under all that pressure, it had destroyed him, and the government who had placed him there had completely disavowed him and betrayed him. 

Would they do the same to Sam?

Bucky wanted to tell Sam that he could change his mind, that it wasn't too late. But he held back from doing so, because this was Sam's decision and Sam knew exactly what he was signing up for. 

“But I know,” Sam said, “every part of me knows that this is what I need to do. It's what I want to do. And it is the right thing to do. No matter how much Hell they put me through, no matter how hard it is.”

“The right thing is rarely easy,” Bucky murmured down the phone, recalling what he had said to Christina only that morning. 

 

I knew it was right because it was hard. The right thing is rarely easy. 

 

Sam was silent for a moment. That Bucky heard him release a long breath. “You’re right,” Sam said, “the right thing is not always the easiest option. This is a hard path, but it's the right one.”

“If there's anything I can do…” Bucky said.

“You can get yourself ready.” Sam said. “There's news on the Flag Smasher front. Torres has access to an app where they update their followers, and something big is coming and soon. In New York.”

“I'll be ready,” Bucky promised. “Just tell me where and when and I'll be there.”

“I'll get Torres to send you everything,” Sam said. “And to keep you updated. And when it happens… I'll be there as Captain America. Not Falcon.”

Bucky felt his heart leap in his chest, picturing in his mind's eye Sam soaring majestically in the air, in his new suit the Wakandans made for him, the colours of the outfit and his wings matching the colours of the shield. Sam wielding the shield in the air as deftly and nimbly as he controlled his wings. 

He didn't think he could say anything without sounding like a blathering idiot so he listened instead as Sam talked more about this app that Torres had discovered and how Torres had managed to discover a lot about Karli and her plans. 

And then the call was over. Bucky stared at his phone for a long while afterwards, thinking about all the things he hadn't said to Sam. He'd wanted to tell Sam that he'd kept his promise by telling Christina the truth about Yori. He'd also wanted to talk to Sam about the ‘Not ever but not yet' conversation. But it hadn't felt like the right moment. 

He felt that the conversation with Sam about their relationship was one that was probably best to have in person, rather than over the phone. He was also worried about his ability to manage that conversation so putting it off for the time being was actually a rather appealing idea. It would give more time to explore it in therapy, and allow for Bucky to properly prepare for the conversation so that hopefully he wouldn't screw it up. 

And while he also really wanted to talk to Sam about Yori and give him an update, part of him rebelled furiously against the idea. Two days ago, when he'd first told Sam about Yori, Sam's response had surprised him. He said this was a conversation best left for therapy. Sam had only given his advice after learning that Bucky hadn't spoken about Yori to Christina yet. And it wasn't the first time Sam had said something like this. 

It worried Bucky that he was crossing some kind of line. That Sam might think that Bucky was leaning on him too much for support. Using him as some kind of substitute therapist which was not what Bucky intended at all. And the thought that he might have crossed an important boundary like that with Sam made him feel ill. 

Maybe that was something he could ask Christina about, he thought as he continued to watch the silent news channel which was still showing clips of Walker and a heavily redacted video clip of the incident itself which had prompted all this international drama. He could ask Christina about whether he was indeed inappropriately sharing things with Sam and if this was something he needed to address. 

Thinking about Christina and therapy took his mind back to the moment before he left. To the moment that he'd stopped himself from offering Christina to call him by his nickname and to the memory that had slammed into his brain like a sledgehammer. 

What had it been? The memory had faded almost as quickly and suddenly as it had arrived. It was odd how sometimes things stuck in his brain, every minute detail and then other things he could not bring to his mind at all - vanishing from him as soon as he thought them, leaving  nothing but a vague recollection that something had been in his mind just a moment ago but was now gone.

It had been just as he had been telling Christina she could call him ‘Bucky’

He grasped for it again.

You can call me Bucky, if you want he'd been about to say.

And then the memory returned to him. His own voice. 

 

My name's James. I think… I think my friends call me Bucky. You can call me Bucky too, if you want. 

 

And there was that feeling again, the sense that this was something important. A gut-deep certainly that this meant something. 

At first glance, it seemed normal. He'd said some version of that plenty of times in his life. Over a hundred times probably.

But it wasn't though, was it? Not like that. 

When would he have ever said to someone I think my friends call me Bucky?

That wasn't right.

He'd never phrased it like that. 

Uncertain. Tentative. Like he wasn't sure.

Like he didn't even remember.

He had never ever referred to himself as James. Only his mother had called him James. He never introduced himself to anyone as James. Before Bucky, it had always been Jamie. 

This was not an innocuous memory at all, he realised with a growing certainty. This wasn't from his childhood. This wasn't from the time before at all. And he never said this to anyone after 2014. He was on the run, he wasn't going around telling people to call him James, or Bucky or anything like that. 

This wasn't from before or after.

This was from somewhere in between. 

Bucky buried his face in his hands. He thought he was done with these mysteries. He'd made a promise to himself that he wasn't going to chase his memories anymore. It always left him with pain and sorrow. But as much as it pained him to think it, he knew he was going to break the promise he had made to himself. 

Bucky took out his cigarettes, pulled one out of the packet, and lit it with a shaky hand. His own voice reverberated in his mind as he deeply inhaled and then exhaled a long plume of smoke. 

 

My name's James. I think… I think my friends call me Bucky. You can call me Bucky too, if you want.

 

This was a Winter Soldier memory. Of that he was certain. The more he thought about it the more certain he became. At some point when he was the Winter Soldier he said those words to someone. 

But when? and why? and to whom?

And perhaps, most importantly 

How?

And just as it had been when he'd been faced with the mystery of what had happened in 1960, he knew he wasn't going to let this go.

 

Notes:

A YouTube channel I watch called Cinema Therapy did an episode on Bucky Barnes last week - Psychology of a hero: Bucky Barnes. I thought it was a great episode. Too short at half an hour - it sould have been several hours in my opinion! - but I thought they explored some really great themes and concepts and while I don't agree with all their observations I certainly felt they delved really well into his psychology exploring from the very beginning right up to the falcon and the winter soldier. A lot of conversation about his feelings of guilt, trauma, some critique of his therapist, as well as some things which really made me think about my take on Bucky and how I'm presenting him in this story. One of the guys got very tearful towards the end because of Sebastian Stan's acting, it's nice to hear the man be appreciated. I cried watching this video. Check it out if this sort of thing interests you.

Chapter 51: Through the Fog it Left Behind

Through the Fog it Left Behind

 

Therapy was supposed to make things better wasn't it? That was the purpose, the point of it. To make him feel better about his actions, his choices, his life… everything. 

But if that was the case, why did he so often leave his sessions often feeling so much worse about everything? Or confused. Unsettled. Disorientated. 

Months ago Christina had managed to convince him that speaking about his life, his memories, all that horrible horrid mess, would make him well. So Bucky had opened up and shared things with her he'd never thought he'd shared with anybody. And then months had passed. And he was still here, still going through the motions. The same problems, the same struggles. Over and over again. And he tried to bear it, as best as he could. He opened up. He shared. He didn't hate it quite so much as he used to. It was fine.  

And there were moments where he could see the value in it. He didn't need Christina to point out that certain things were different. He could see that there had been a change in himself, even if he wasn't sure he could pinpoint exactly what it was, or put it into words. 

But it just went on and on and on. Christina never gave him an indication of how long this would go on for. There were no identifiable goals or targets. Months of therapy stretched out behind him, and he was pretty certain that months of therapy stretched out ahead. Three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am like clockwork. Immutable. Unchanging. Never ending.

Today, he'd thought about asking her that question. How long do we have to do this for? But he didn't. Partly because he was afraid of the answer, which he was pretty certain would be along the lines of How long is a piece of string? And he didn't want to hear that. You can't put a time length on recovery. He could practically hear Christina's voice saying that. It sounded like something Sam would say as well. But then Sam had been a counselor himself, before he'd been dragged into joining the Avengers. Bucky wasn't sure what the difference between a counsellor and a therapist was, but he figured there would be a lot of overlap. 

The other reason he didn't bring it up was because there hadn't really been a moment for it. Christina always kept him so busy during sessions. Asking questions designed to make him think, he supposed. And uncomfortable. By the time the session came to an end he was just relieved to get out of there. 

 

And here he was now, meandering through the streets of Brooklyn, taking as long as possible to get home and trying not to think too much.

He remembered to bring his notebook to therapy today. On Monday, after he finished talking to Sam, he'd sent Christina the photos of all the names he'd scribbled in the back pages of his notebook when he was with Sam over the weekend. So she already had those. When she rang that evening to check in on him she confirmed with him that he wanted the pages shared with the government. So that was all sorted. He wasn't sure what, if anything, would happen as a result of passing over those names, but he'd find out. A lot of the names were still in high profile positions in politics. It would become very clearly apparent if the White House took action against the people on his list.

He took his notebook to therapy because he'd actually been writing in it pretty consistently since last Friday and he wanted to show Christina that he had been writing in it. He wanted to show her that he was taking this very seriously. Logging his sleep, logging his meals, logging his cigarettes, any maladaptive thoughts. He arrived at therapy that morning bang on 10am, and thrust it over towards her for her approval and she flicked through the pages, made small humming noises of approval and then passed it straight back over to him.

“Aren't you going to ask me about anything?” he asked, the notebook still proffered towards her like an offering between them. 

“It's for you, James, not for me.” 

He put the notebook on the couch next to him.

“Unless there's anything you specifically want to ask me about.”

He thought about it. Thought about bringing up the pages where he'd written about overhearing Sam and Sarah's conversation in  the kitchen and his anxiety about it. But then decided against it. She saw the pages. She read them. If she wanted to say anything about it, she would. But he felt a bit deflated. If she wasn't going to talk about it then what was the point?

She must have picked up on his thoughts for she continued, “I'm very glad that you are filling out your notebook. But you're not doing this for me, or because I ask you to. Do you know why you are doing this?”

A whirlwind of responses played out in his mind. 

 

Because he wanted to be his best self for Sam

Because this had been what Christina had wanted him to do - she was the one who always made such a big deal about self-care activities and maladaptive behaviours

He wasn't doing this for his own enjoyment

Because he wanted therapy to end - and, by the way, when would that be? 

 

None of those responses seemed quite appropriate. He wrung his hands together on his lap. 

“Because I want to get better,” he said. “I want to be well.”

And that's the moment when he really wanted to ask the question of how long it would be. How long before he would start moving forwards more than backwards. How long before they could set an end date for their final session. 

How long does it take to make the crazy, sane? 

And he was afraid of the answer. 

“And what does that look like for you?” She asked.

That seemed like a trick question. A question designed for him to get wrong. But he was pretty certain that wasn't what she was doing. She was doing that thing again, trying to get him to realise things on his own rather than telling him. 

Motivational Interviewing he thought. She'd told him about that before, way at the beginning when she first introduced herself and described her ways of working. She'd used a lot of fancy modern jargon that he didn't understand. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Motivational Interviewing. Harm reduction. Cycles of Change. Signs of Safety. He knew what they all meant now. 

And right now he knew what she was looking for with that question. She wanted him to describe what he imagined his life would look like if he were well. What he would be like. And she would want him to frame it positively. None of this

 

I want to stop doing all the shitty maladaptive crap I do

 

But rather things like

 

I want to eat three meals a day

I want to sleep without nightmares

I want to be my best self for Sam

 

They'd had these conversations before and he remembered them and he learned from them. He knew what to say to give the right answers. But he didn't feel like going through the motions of that. It didn't feel real. It didn't feel like what he would say. He didn't want to fake it. And now he felt dispirited, deflated and frustrated. 

“I don't know, Christina.” He rested the back of his head against the cushions. “I do all this,” he gestured towards the notebook, “because it's supposed to mean something. Because months ago you told me this is what I had to do to be well. And I didn't take it seriously then. But I am now because that's what you said.”

He began fiddling with his dog tags, still hanging round his neck as always, twisting and turning them round his fingers. 

“I do everything. I'm writing it all in. I'm thinking about things. Three times a day I think I should be eating something because that's what I need to do to be well. Every night I try to sleep because I know I need to.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but he knew he sounded frustrated. “I even read your bloody affirmations! I don't…”

“Which is your favourite?” She cut across him suddenly, leaving him momentarily stunned and silenced. 

This was ridiculous. “I don't know, I don't have a favourite. They're just words.”

“I am worthy of care,” she persevered. “That's my favourite.”

The second one on the list, Bucky thought. Directly under I am lovable. And directly above Today shall be a good day.

He hated that he remembered that.

“I think it's important to know that not only do people care about us, but that we are worthy of that care,” she said.

Bucky made a non-committal noise of agreement. 

“Sam cares about you,” Christina said. “Why do you think that is?”

Bucky blinked, and twiddled the dog tags even faster. He had to be careful or else he'd break the chain.

“We get on,” Bucky said. “He's easy to talk to. He's funny and smart and really caring…”

“No,” she interrupted. “That's why you care about him. Why does he he care about you? What makes you worthy of that care?”

Bucky licked his lips. He quashed the urge to shut down this line of questioning because it was making him uncomfortable. She was asking him this for a reason. And it was about Sam. And he was trying to be better for Sam, wasn't he? For himself as well, of course, he reminded himself. But if this was about Sam he should make more of an effort to answer. 

“The same reasons I suppose,” Bucky hedged. 

“No, tell me. What is it about you that makes Sam feel care for you?”

This reminded him of when he met Zemo at the Sokovian memorial. When Zemo had listed his better qualities. The ability to see light in the darkness. Forgiveness. Loyalty.

How was it that Zemo of all people was able to list Bucky’s own qualities whereas Bucky himself could not?

“I guess he thinks I'm easy to talk to,” Bucky said. “He thinks I'm…” 

I'm what? He thought. Why would Sam care about him? Why was he deserving of Sam’s care? What did Sam see in Bucky that made Sam think he was worth it? Despite all the shit Bucky had put Sam through over the last six months, why did Sam continue to care about him?

Flickers of thoughts came to mind, fleeting, before vanishing away. Things that he might once have said about himself. That he was caring, that he wanted to help people, that he could be funny and interesting. Someone who Sam would want to spend time with. Someone who Sam actively chose to be a part of his life.

He remembered Sam introducing him to Sarah. He'd used the word friend. Bucky didn't think the words even existed for him to even begin to explain how much that meant to him.

He shook his head. “I can't do this.”

“Who else would you say cares for you?” She asked without missing a beat.

Bucky let out an awkward laugh. “Who else is there?”

His mind went to Yori, but Yori hadn't cared about him, because Yori hadn't known him. That had just been a lie.

“Steve did,” Bucky said.

“I know he did,” Christina said. “He loved you very much.”

“He defied the United Nations to keep me safe.” Bucky couldn't prevent the pride from slipping out. “He let the Avengers break up, for me. Because he cared.”

Because he felt guilty, is what he didn't say. Because Steve blamed himself for Bucky being in Hydra's hands for seventy years. But he knew that was a disservice to Steve to say it was only guilt motivating him. Because of course it wasn't. Steve cared about him because he was Bucky. Because they were brothers. Because they'd grown up together, weathered life's many challenges together, and fought together. As children, they'd been inseparable.

“What about people now?” she asked. 

“There's no-one else,” Bucky said. And as the weight of those words settled he suddenly realised how incredibly alone he was. 

“I don't think that's true,” Christina said. “What about Sarah, Cass and AJ?”

“They only met me once,” Bucky said. 

“You think it's impossible to care about someone you only met once?” She challenged him. “Do you want to tell me that neither Sarah, or Sam's nephews care about you?”

Bucky shook his head. “No,” he said. He remembered Sarah's kindness. The way she went out of her way to make Bucky feel comfortable and at home. Treating him like a normal person. He remembered how excited the boys were when Sarah said Bucky was welcome to come back at any time. “I know they care.”

“Do you think that you are deserving of their care?”

Bucky hesitated. “I suppose so,” he said eventually. “I want to be,” he clarified. “Like, I was polite and I helped them out. And the boys had fun with me. They thought I was fun, but I don't know…”

“You don't feel you deserve it,” she said. “So you do not feel worthy. Because of who you've been. Because of your past as the Winter Soldier.”

“Yes,” Bucky said. “Because that hangs over every good thing I do. I can't wipe that away. I can't change it.”

“No you can't,” she agreed. “No-one can change the past. But you know what can change? Our thoughts and feelings about it.”

This was starting to give him closure vibes. A word, well not the word itself but more rather a concept, that he had often struggled with. Ever since Sam, months ago, had told him that speaking about Steve helped give him closure. 

“But when we talk about you being worthy of care,” Christina said, “I'm not talking about actions. You are not worthy or unworthy because of what you've done, or what you do for people. We're talking about who you are. Trauma has a way of distorting that, of convincing you that you're only ever the worst things you've been through.”

He didn't look at her, just continued to turn his dog tags round and round in anxious loops.

“We'll never change the past. Therapy isn't about pretending the past didn't happen, and trying to wipe it away,” she continued. “It's about helping you see yourself clearly through the fog it left behind.” 

There was a long silence. Christina had a way of using silences, stretching the silence out between them for so long that usually Bucky couldn't hold himself back from breaking the silence himself, just to get it to end. He hated silences. But it was different this time. Her words landed heavily on him, and it felt like they meant something, but it was hard to put his finger on why this resonated with him so much. And he wasn't sure how to put this feeling into words. 

So Christina just let him sit with it for a bit longer, before she broke the silence herself.

“I'd like you to think about qualities that you have, that makes you you. When you next look at the affirmations, I'd like you to think about that one. I am worthy of care. And I'd like you to think about what other people would say, like Sam, if I asked them why they care about you. Do you think you would do that?”

Bucky nodded. 

“You're right though,” she said thoughtfully, “when you say that your world is quite small right now. It might do you some good to interact more with other people. That's something we could work on, when you're ready.”

Groups and things like that, Bucky thought. Sitting with a group of strangers with varying degrees of trauma and expected to share and listen to stories about said trauma. He really couldn't think of much worse. 

“I used to think there were people in Hydra who cared about me,” he offered up, in a bid to avoid any further discussion about him attending groups. 

“Like Brock Rumlow?” She asked. He noticed her body language change. It was subtle, and if he hadn't known her for so long, or been as observant as he was, he wouldn't have noticed it. It was the way she straightened up on her chair a little bit. The tiniest of frown lines. The ever so slight pursing of the lips. 

Christina was a professional, but she was still human. And it was gratifying to see, even as subtle as it was, her distaste for Rumlow. 

“Yes, and maybe others.” Bucky recalled something else Zemo told him at the memorial, before being carted off to the Raft. That he'd read papers handed down from handler to handler, making reference to people the Winter Soldier had got attached to.

“He used to be kind,” Bucky said. “Or I thought he was. It was all lies though, wasn't it? He was always just being horrible.”

“Abusive,” Christina murmured.

“It would have been nice if…” he broke off, appalled and astonished by the words he'd been about to say. It would have been nice if it had been real. 

 

A flicker of a memory. 

I had to send him away. He got too attached

And then gone as quickly as it came. 

 

“If there had been just one person,” Bucky rephrased. “Just one decent person. I was there for seventy years, Christina. Do you know how many people over those seventy years knew about me?” It was a rhetorical question. “It wasn't just the generals, or the Colonels or the others in charge. There were also my handlers. There were the doctors and the technicians. The scientists who knew how to work the Chair and looked at my brain. There were the agents who I operated with. There were people I trained. For god's sake there were janitors and handymen who worked around me, all probably threatened with non-disclosure agreements and death if they ever said anything. A lot of people. Maybe hundreds. And not one… not one person was decent enough or… or… or…  caring enough to even try to do something.”

And that was something that bothered him immensely. It had always bothered him, people's capacity to just sit aside and watch as the most terrible atrocities were carried out right in front of them. And then they just go home to their families and their friends and just carry on as if everything was just completely normal. 

All those names he'd scribbled in the back of his notebook that Christina had now passed on, at his request. He wondered what, if anything, the President was going to do about them.

 

And that's what he was thinking about now, over an hour after his therapy session finished, idly wandering the streets of Brooklyn, deliberately taking his time before heading home. Because what would he do when he got home? Probably spend the rest of the day chasing memories, and getting frustrated about it.

He was also thinking about Yori. Yori had cared about him, had treated him like a friend, almost like his own son. Giving him life advice, and always ready to greet him with an eager smile. He missed Yori immensely. 

He thought about Christina asking him to think about why people cared about him. He thought about Yori and how he met Yori. Yori cared about him because the first time they'd met, Bucky had helped Yori after he'd bashed against the wall during his altercation with a neighbour. 

No, Bucky thought. That wasn't right. Christina said it wasn't about actions, it was about who you are.  

Bucky tried again. What was it about Bucky himself, that had made Yori care about him?

Yori cared about Bucky because Yori was that kind of person who cared about people. But that was Yori's quality, not Bucky's. 

Bucky felt himself pick up speed in his frustration. This was hard. Harder than it was made out to be. It shouldn't be so hard. How hard was it to think something like:

 

People care about me because I am kind, and good. Because I care about them. Because I go out of my way to help people. Because I try to do the right thing even if sometimes I fail. Because I'm pleasant and easy to talk to. 

 

He used to be charismatic, witty and charming. He made people feel special just by talking to them. But he wasn't that same person anymore.

It all felt like a lie.

And why was he thinking about Yori anyway? Yori never really cared about him, because Yori hadn't even known him. All Yori knew was a lie. Yori would never have cared about him if he'd just been upfront with him in the first place. They hadn't even been friends. It was all based on secrets and lies. 

So it made sense, he supposed, when he finally dragged himself out of his thoughts, that he found himself only a couple of streets away from the restaurant where he and Yori used to get lunch on a Wednesday. He used to go there straight after therapy. He remembered sitting with Yori at the bar, while Yori poured over the obituaries. He remembered Yori offering to set Bucky up with the waitress, and then giving him love advice.

 

Take the leap

 

It was 1pm on a Wednesday, Bucky thought. If Yori kept with his routine, he'd probably still be at the restaurant. He hesitated for a moment, knowing that what he ought to do, was to walk the other way and head home. But Yori was in his head now, and Bucky had been so worried about him. Christina told him that Yori was fine. But if he could at least just see that Yori was okay, with his own eyes, then maybe that would be enough.

If Yori was there, with his newspaper, and chatting animatedly with the staff, then Bucky would know that Yori was okay. And then he'd walk away and never see Yori again. 

But what if he wasn't? What would Bucky do if Yori wasn't there? Or he was there but looked miserable and depressed. He couldn't then just leave. What pathway would this choice lead to?  

He started walking, briskly, in the direction of the restaurant, before his brain had a chance to catch up and tell him firmly that this was a very bad idea.

He only slowed as he approached the glass windows and doors of the restaurant. Izzy's

He didn't want to risk being seen. 

He pretended to read the menu taped to the door, but his eyes roved round the busy interior of the restaurant, immediately seeking out Yori's usual chair at the bar. And yes, there he was. Sitting in his favourite place, a newspaper open in front of him. 

A week ago, Bucky would have pushed open the door and joined him. He'd have greeted Yori cheerfully as he approached and Yori would have greeted him with a smile and a Japanese phrase as Bucky sat down next to him. But now, he couldn't go in there. 

A waitress, the very same waitress that Yori had offered to set him up with all those months ago, placed a plate in front of Yori and a tea. Bucky watched as Yori raised the paper up and pointed something out to the waitress. 

Only 83 years old, he imagined Yori saying, that's younger than I am! 

Bucky swallowed a lump that was forming in his throat. He wanted so badly to wind back the clock, to be able to just push the door open and join his friend but he couldn't do that. He mustn't do that. Not only had Christina been very firm with him that he shouldn't see Yori again, he knew in his heart that going in there would be the wrong thing to do. The right thing was to walk away. And he knew it was the right thing to do, because it was the hardest thing to do. 

The waitress moved away, and Yori turned his attention to the food and drink in front of him, moving his plate on top of the newspaper and wielding his chopsticks like the pro he was and…

Bucky's breath caught and he leaned closer against the glass to make sure he wasn't seeing things because that was red bean mochi, wasn't it?

 

My son.. he remembered Yori saying, that was his favourite

 

It had been the very first time he'd come here with Yori. Yori had been talking to him, before suddenly falling silent almost mid sentence, and retreating inside his head. Bucky had recognised it as dissociation - God knows Bucky had experienced it himself enough times to realise what it was in someone else. Being physically here in the present, while your mind was elsewhere. 

Seeing his son's favourite food being served at another table had had such an impact on Yori. And now he had it in front of him, he was eating it. 

That had to mean something, surely? 

Maybe… maybe it meant that Yori really was okay. Maybe it meant that Bucky hadn't screwed up, hadn't made things worse for Yori. Maybe it really was the case that telling Yori about his son's death had actually helped in some way. Answered his questions. Given him closure.

That word again, closure, it kept coming up, all the time. But was this what that was? Was this what closure looked like? 

Maybe there was something to it, after all.

A group of people inside the restaurant were approaching the door to leave, and Bucky scarpered. But he'd seen enough. If he stayed any longer he'd risk Yori seeing him, or the waitress recognising him and telling Yori that he'd been skulking around. 

He picked up his pace, eager to put distance in between him and Yori. He still felt guilty, and terrible for Yori, but he also felt ever so slightly lighter and reassured by what he had seen. Maybe Christina was right, and Yori really was going to be okay. He knew he'd never see Yori again, but now he felt a little less awful about it. 

As he headed home he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a message from Sam.

 

Karli's making a move on Friday, in New York. You in?

Bucky didn't hesitate.

Of course I'm in. What's the plan?

Chapter 52: Only the Beginning

Only the Beginning

Bucky felt exhausted when he returned to his apartment late Friday night. But he couldn't go to sleep, not yet. Sam was still out there, rounding up the last of the Flag Smashers, and Bucky wouldn't sleep until he knew Sam was okay.

Instead he went straight for the television, flicking from news channel to news channel, desperate to see how they were reporting on Sam, what light they were showing him in.

“This will make or break me as Captain America,” Sam said earlier that evening as he'd run through the plan with Bucky. “No room for error. Any mistake, any slight hiccup no matter how small, and they'll be merciless.”

That wasn't fair, but it was the harsh reality. The general public, politicians and the world would be brutal to Sam if he made mistakes. Sam would always be held to higher standards than Steve, and the stakes were so much higher. Just as Sam had told him the other week, when they were fixing the boat tougher - his mistakes would never be seen in the same light as Steve's. If Sam made mistakes the narrative would become this is why a Black person shouldn't be Captain America. And Bucky knew that this was something that Sam was keenly conscious of and formed a big part of his reluctance to take on the Shield in the first place. 

The burden of representational responsibility. 

 

Breaking: New Captain America identified as Sam Wilson

Live: Heroic Rescue at GRC Summit

Not Everyone Applauding: Critics say Wilson Overstepped

 

Bucky flicked from channel to channel, pausing only to hear the odd snippet, trying to get an overall picture of how Sam was being presented and how he was being perceived.

“It's important to note that Wilson wasn't officially appointed by the government - this could raise questions about authority and chain of command’

‘Frankly, that people are still questioning his right to wear the stars and stripes says more about us than it does about him’

‘That speech? Gave me chills’

The media seemed fractured. Some were praising him as a hero, others were questioning him. But there was no outright negativity. Some idiots on social media were going on about do we really need a Black Captain America? But Bucky disregarded those. 

Reporters were out there right now, questioning the people who'd been at the scene watching Sam as he'd soared through the air, saving lives, wielding the shield with such efficiency that it was hard to believe that a week ago Sam had been struggling with it. 

Seems like Sam had listened to Bucky and was trying to play more to his strengths and not Steve's. 

A reporter was speaking to two older men, both Black, who'd been at the scene. They were excited. “The best moment of my life,” one of them said. “I turned to Paul here, and I said, didn't I Paul, I said, look that's Black Falcon and what did you say, Paul? Tell them what you said.”

The other man looked directly into the camera. “I said, nah that's Captain America!”

It seemed quite deliberate and staged, but Bucky was glad for it. It was exactly the kind of sound bite that Sam needed. Bucky continued scrolling through his phone as he flicked through the channels, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. Overall, this was good. Really good.

He stopped on a channel which was showing highlights of what had just happened. Sam chasing the Flagsmashers through the sky in their helicopter, Sam preventing the armoured transport truck containing the GRC delegates from crashing into a construction site, holding the truck in the air using the drones, the jet pack and the shield. 

Bucky recalled looking up at Sam, from the bottom of the construction pit, his heart in his throat, so terrified he was that Sam was pushing himself too hard. And then the pride he'd felt as Sam had lifted those people to safety, saving their lives. Seeing Sam in action, in his element, had been thrilling, but also terrifying. 

It had been awful, hearing the noises through the ear piece. Sam had given Bucky his own instructions which meant that Bucky was not anywhere near Sam most of the time. He could hear Sam fighting, could hear muffled yells and grunts of exertion and pain, all while he was trying to focus on what it was he had to do as well. It had been hard to resist the urge to drop everything and rush to Sam's side to help him, but he knew he mustn't do that.

If Bucky took too much of the spotlight himself, the media would be all over him and not Sam. Bucky would end up overshadowing Sam, making the conversation all about him. Bucky had a visceral aversion to being in the spotlight, but more importantly, this was Sam's debut as Captain America and Bucky knew he had to let Sam shine. But it had been hard, really hard not to rush to Sam's side, his mind conjuring up all kinds of horrific scenarios. 

He remembered that sight of Sam, soaring overhead, stopping him in his tracks. Sam had been astounding. 

He turned a channel. The news here was talking about Walker, who'd also shown up earlier this evening to take part in the fight. He'd not been part of Sam's plan, he'd just turned up. Still dressed as Captain America with some crappy knockoff shield. Still, Bucky had to admit that Walker had helped. Walker had saved lives too, he couldn't deny it. Those people who Sam had saved might have been dead already if it hadn't been for Walker.

“It was supposed to be you, you know.” Bucky recalled Walker's words as they'd both watched Sam launching the shield at a helicopter. Walker gestured at Sam. “They always wanted it to be you, it's why they made so much effort rebranding your image.”

Bucky closed his eyes, hearing Walker saying those words in his mind all over again. It confirmed what Bucky had always suspected to be the case. Had he not said to Christina months ago,

 

They want me to be their pet supersoldier. I won't do it. I'm not a replacement for Steve. 

 

A part of him had always known the government must have had a reason for trying so hard to rehabilitate him, all that therapy, all that effort to change public perception of him. All that money spent on reparations to other countries, all the legal battles to prevent extradition. The reason why he could travel so freely to certain countries was because of all the effort and expense the American government had expended on his behalf to make it so. 

Because of course, who else better than to take on the mantle and continue Steve's legacy, Bucky thought bitterly. Not the man who Steve had wanted, and chosen. Not the man who had proven himself time and time again as strong and valuable, who had fought alongside Steve for years and years. No, the former brainwashed Russian assassin would be far better, simply because of who he'd been seventy years ago. 

“Then you ended up in hospital,” Walker continued, “and that's when they knew they had to go in a different direction.” Walker hurled his crappy broken make-shift shield away from him in frustration. “And they came knocking at my door. I wish they'd just stayed away.”

They didn't have time right then to explore this any further. Sam had flown away to confront Karli and Bucky could hear him fighting through the ear piece, and there were still the other Flag Smashers to round up. But Bucky paused then for just a moment, because he could hear the honesty in Walker's voice, could see the regret in his eyes, all over his face. And then Walker turned to him.

“About that… about what I said, back then…” 

Bucky suddenly knew what it was that Walker was about to say. Walker was about to apologise for his cruel words several weeks ago, when he'd made light of Bucky's suicide attempt, all that nastiness about the serum. And he didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to forced into a position where he would feel obliged to accept the other man's apology. 

He accepted that he had to work with Walker, right now, and that Walker was at least being useful, but he wasn't about to have any heart to heart talks with the other man. He had sympathy and empathy for Walker, as a fellow soldier with his own issues, but it didn't change what an absolute piece of shit Walker had been over the last month. And Bucky was not willing to forgive him.

“We have work to do,” he interrupted gruffly, and then he spun on his heel to lay the ambush for the other Flag Smashers and Walker followed.

It was a relief to see, Bucky thought, that neither he or Walker were being given much focus, if any, on the news channels. There was a clip of Walker, trying to stop the armoured truck from falling into the construction pit. That was worrying, as questions would soon be asked about exactly how he was able to do that. That could lead to some very worrying outcomes, with the wrong kinds of people approaching Walker and could become a big problem in the future. 

Bucky appeared in one or two of the clips being shown. Someone had filmed him on their mobile phone as he'd rescued some of the delegates from the other armoured truck that the Flag Smashers had rigged to explode. There was so much noise from emergency vehicles and explosions, and the person recording had been too far away to pick up anything that was being said. But Bucky remembered one man, grabbing his arm and saying “thank you for saving us”.

He'd been too stunned right then to reply. Too caught up in the moment, the adrenaline, the need to keep moving, to check the others were okay and his worry for Sam. He remembered just sort of numbly nodding before reaching out for the next person. It felt odd to be thanked, like the gratitude should be meant for someone else, but it hadn't - it had been for him. Because Bucky had saved lives tonight. And not because of an accident, not because it was something that happened around him or because of him. Not because he failed to follow orders and allowed witnesses to live. But because he himself had actively made the choice to do so. He hadn't expected praise or thanks, and he wasn't sure he entirely deserved it, but to get it was oddly affirming. 

Sharon Carter didn't show up on any of the clips or news channels. She'd been there, Sam had asked for her support and she'd given it, reminding Sam about getting her her pardon. But from the news channels and video clips it was like she hadn't been there at all. She'd been good at keeping herself hidden. Bucky hadn't wanted her to be there, he didn't like or trust Sharon. But he trusted Sam's judgement and said nothing when Sam laid out the part of the plan that included her. 

Now, however, he was glad she had been there.

Bucky had heard the gunshot through the ear piece. That moment of horror and utter fear he'd felt thinking that it might have been Sam who'd got shot. Just moments before he'd been hearing Sam's voice trying to talk Karli down, refusing to give in, refusing to stop fighting. It had taken every ounce of Bucky's self control not to rush to Sam's aid, because he knew Sam needed to do this alone, he knew Sam wanted to do this alone. And he also trusted that Sam could do this alone. But then the gunshot, followed by a moment of silence that felt like an eternity. And then Sam's voice, thank God, shouting, “What did you do!?” 

Bucky wasn't sure who did what, but it was clear that Sam was alive and hadn't been shot. And then minutes later Sam had emerged from the sky, wings spread like an angel, carrying Karli's dead body. 

He watched it now, being played back on WHIH Newsfront. The leader of the terrorist organisation known as the Flag Smashers has been eliminated ran across the bottom of the screen. Sam laying Karli's body gently onto the stretcher brought out by an ambulance crew.

He remembered feeling an awful mixture of relief but also sorrow when he'd watched Sam pass Karli's dead body to the paramedics. Relief that this was all finally over. That Sam was alive and well. That they'd succeeded. But also sadness because this wasn't how Sam had wanted this to end. Because Sam had had hope and faith in Karli, as misguided as that faith had been, and Bucky hadn't wanted Sam to experience this let down.

“He didn't shoot her.” Bucky hadn't even noticed Sharon joining him. She stood next to him, watching the scene playing out in front of them. “I did.”

He felt relieved to hear this. Relief that Sam wouldn't be carrying the burden of this guilt, of being the one to end Karli's life. 

“You did the right thing,” he told her. 

Sharon shrugged. “He won't think that. So much for my pardon.”

And then she slipped away. Bucky then edged his way forward from the shadows, closer to the crowd and the noise and the cameras. He didn't want to get sucked into things, but Sam was speaking and he was desperate to hear what Sam was saying. This was an important moment. The eyes of the world were on Sam. Bucky needed to know what was being said.

Bucky turned to WNB news who were now talking about Sam's speech. 

“Just minutes after saving the lives of the GRC delegates, Sam Wilson, donning the stars and stripes, relieved a powerful speech that's already being called a defining moment for the new Captain America.”

That sounded promising, Bucky thought. 

“Critics say the new Captain America blurred the lines between heroism and political activism, with the hashtag Not my Captain trending on social media.”

Political activism? Bucky thought. Wasn't that part of the point of Captain America? They never called Steve a political activist yet he'd challenged the government and authority constantly. Ever since Steve had been 14 years old and punched a policeman for unfairly picking on some black kids. That had been when it all started, Steve's sense of justice, of right and wrong, his unwavering need to help people and do the right thing. And this led to him defying the army, defying orders, defying organisations and governments, eventually to defying the world. Steve had always been hailed as noble. Principled. But Sam? He gives one speech and suddenly he's too political. Too loud. Too Black. It made him feel sick. 

And there was nothing wrong with what Sam had said to the GRC senator. Sam had rightly called them all out. Laying the ugly truth bare in front of them, in front of the world and demanding that they need to step up and do better. 

He remembered standing there, just out of view of the reporters and cameras as they crowded round Sam, listening attentively to what he had to say.

 

“The only power I have is that I believe we can do better”

 

The senator called Karli and Flag Smashers terrorists. The whole world called them terrorists, but Sam had always had a different view of them. Bucky wasn't really certain where he lay on the matter. In his opinion if someone looked like a terrorist and acted like a terrorist, then they probably were a terrorist, and who would know that better than him? But he was conflicted because he knew how much Sam disliked that label for Karli and her friends. 

 

“That's just how you label them to make yourselves feel better,” Sam said.

 

Bucky remembered being on Zemo's plane with Sam. Sam telling him how any one of them would act in the same way if they were in Karli's shoes. 

 

The senator told the news reporter that the Peacekeepers would storm the resettlement camps and flush out any remaining terrorists.  

“You've got to stop calling them terrorists,” Sam told the senator, and the world. “You cannot be inherently hostile to a group of people and then be surprised when they are hostile back. Her people were ignored and marginalised and suffering and no one was listening. Yes she went down the wrong path but that doesn't and shouldn't detract from the cause that she was fighting for. You can't hide from the very real problems that are going on by shouting terrorist.

There are lessons to be learned here, the same lessons that we never learn from. Using hatred to create more hatred.

This young woman was created by a society that deemed her and her friends and family as unimportant and lesser simply for existing and surviving. And your response is more violence! How is that going to do anything other than create the exact same situation? More disenfranchised, mistreated people who seek to defend themselves and their families. If you don't do better, this will happen again, and again.”

“You have no idea how complicated this situation is,” the senator said. “You just don't understand. We can't just ‘do better', it's not so easy.”

“No, it's not,” Sam interrupted him, “It was never going to be easy. This situation was created by people like you, senator, for choosing the easy path over the right one. The right path is rarely easy. That's how we know it's the right one.”

And those words sent Bucky reeling. So much so that he never heard the end of Sam's speech. Because weren't those the exact same words he'd said to Sam over the phone earlier that week when talking how hard it would be for Sam to be Captain America? 

The right thing is rarely easy Bucky had said. And Sam had responded This is a hard path, but it's the right one.

To hear Sam take Bucky's own words and speak them out loud to the world, meant everything to him. Sam listened to him. Sam had heard him. Some strange, large feeling rose in his chest, so powerful he could barely breathe. He could only hear the thudding of his heart, a whirlwind in his brain. His fingers numb as learned against the ambulance next to him for support else his legs might give away with the strength of those feelings.

He suddenly realised what it was. It was similar to the realisation he'd had on Zemo's plane weeks ago, the moment he'd recognised that his feelings for Sam were more than a simple crush. It was the same as that, but magnified. Magnified a thousand times. This was love, wasn't it? 

He was in love with Sam. 

He rested his forehead against the side of the ambulance and took a deep, grounding breath. 

God, he was so screwed. He was in love with Sam. And they weren't even in a relationship. They'd kissed all of once and that had ended terribly. Sam was still dithering around with his ‘not ever but not yet' conversation, still in the Prologue while Bucky was racing ahead towards the finish. This could go nowhere. This would probably go nowhere. And he'd let himself fall in love with the man. 

And then Sam joined him, forcing Bucky to pay attention, to seem normal. Bucky made some joke about not listening to Sam's speech, because he was texting, and Sam laughed. But this made Bucky feel worse because he had listened to Sam's speech, and he wanted to tell Sam how amazing it was, how amazing he'd been. How honoured and flattered he felt hearing Sam repeat Bucky's own words. But no, he was so flustered and flabbergasted that he let Sam think he hadn't been paying attention. 

And now, replaying Sam's speech on the television, he felt even worse about it. Why hadn't he told Sam how amazing he'd been, how proud of Sam he was? He felt like such an idiot. 

He flicked to a different channel, another one replaying Sam's speech. But this camera was angled in such a way that Bucky could see himself, standing next to the ambulance, watching Sam. For some reason the camera was focused on Bucky, and not on Sam. 

Bucky let his eyes flicker to the banner running at the bottom of the screen. James Buchanan Barnes, former Winter Soldier, back in action: What role did the Winter Soldier play in GRC rescue?

Bucky chewed on his bottom lip as he stared at his own face. The camera was zoomed in on him while Sam was speaking. He felt uncomfortable seeing himself. He hadn't realised he'd moved so close to Sam as to be picked up by the cameras. It wasn't deliberate, he'd just wanted to hear what Sam was saying. Bucky didn't belong in that frame. Not here. Not in Sam's moment. 

Bucky had always preferred to operate in the shadows. Even before the Winter Soldier, during the war, he'd been best as a hidden operative. He hated cameras, he hated the limelight. One time he'd had a massive argument with Steve about exactly that, because the powers above wanted Bucky to be on display more; the handsome face of the Howling Commandos, everything a soldier should be, to try to raise morale and hide the real ugly truth of war from the public. 

And now here he was, on display, playing on news channels all over the world. He'd known that there'd be some interest in him, of course there would be. But suddenly the implications of that really hit him. There'd be more articles about him. More discussions and debate. The White House might have to give a statement about him. People might start to recognise him more in the street now. More former victims may emerge. Another Yori. 

His new look and his new arm as well as the lack of general interest in him had spared him much recognition until now. But now this, shortly after everything that had happened in Latvia, was going to draw more attention to him. How could it now? 

Bucky stared into his own eyes, seeing himself falter, put a hand up onto the ambulance to steady himself. Watched as Sam joined him, patting him on the back, before being called away to complete the job. Saw himself suddenly notice the cameras, and slink quickly back into the shadows. 

“There in the background, helping evacuate hostages and assisting with crowd control, is none other than James Buchanan Barnes. The former Winter Soldier, long presumed out of commission, was seen working alongside Wilson and Walker during this crisis. A controversial figure to say the least.”

Bucky turned off the television, and stared blankly at the now blank screen. He let out a breath and leaned back against the couch cushions, and tried to digest everything that he'd just seen and learned. 

 

His phone rang, and Bucky couldn't move quicker to answer it, almost dropping it in his haste and almost accidentally hanging up instead of answering when he saw it was Sam ringing him.

“You're okay?” Bucky asked. “Is it over?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Sam said. And Bucky felt his body go limp with the relief that he felt, hearing those words. But of course Sam wasn't fine was he? Physically maybe but…

“I'm sorry about Karli,” Bucky said. “I know you hoped it would end differently. I know you didn't want this.”

Sam was silent for a moment. “I appreciate that,” he said. “You told me it would have to end this way, but I hoped you were wrong.”

“I hoped I was wrong too,” Bucky said, “I mean it.”

Sam let out a shaky breath. “I know you do.”

Another pause. “They’re all dead, actually. Every single one. I'm not sure it's been reported yet, but it will be soon.”

Bucky blinked, astonished. “What happened?”

“They were in a convy, to be taken to the Raft,” Sam said. “And they blew up. All of them.”

Bucky, for a moment, was lost for words. “It wasn't me.” The words rushed out of him in a flood. He needed Sam to believe him.

”No, you idiot.” Sam sounded more like his old self again, which was a relief. “I know it wasn't you.” Sam's trust and belief in him was unbelievably affirming. 

“I think it was Zemo,” Sam said. 

Bucky scoffed. “He's in prison. Isn't he?” He wondered if Zemo had somehow escaped already.

“He is, I checked,” Sam said. “But that doesn't mean it wasn't him. He's resourceful and he's got people on the outside. That butler of his, for example.”

"That butler is about a hundred years old,” Bucky said. 

“So are you,” Sam replied.

It probably was Zemo, Bucky thought. He remembered Zemo telling him I've decided to let you live. It had been almost funny at the time. As if Zemo was like some grand executioner able to choose who would live and who would die. Zemo, knowing Sam wouldn't kill Karli and the others, and knowing that Bucky wouldn't because of Sam, probably would have made plans to have this carried out. 

“And as for this being over,” Sam said, “I think this is only the beginning actually.” Sam let out another sigh. “There's a lot of people who I need to talk to now. A lot of red tape. A lot of work to be done.”

“I thought you were amazing,” Bucky said, finally being able to say to Sam what he should have said earlier. “I've been watching it on the news. You're… you did so well. And what you said to that senator…”

Bucky remembered how it had felt in that moment. The moment Sam had quoted his own words to the senator. How it had made him feel. How it made him feel listened to, heard, how it confirmed in his mind that Sam did care about him, cared enough to respect his views and feelings. To not believe for a single instant that Bucky might have been the one to blow up those convoys taking the Flag Smashers to prison. That was care, wasn't it?

It made him think about his conversation with Christina earlier that week, about Sam caring for him. He knew without a doubt that Sam did care. But he was still struggling with the why of it.

Before he could stop himself, without even a thought to consider whether this was the right moment for this conversation, he heard himself say:

“Sam, why do you care about me?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. A silence Bucky misinterpreted. 

“You do, don't you?” He felt his stomach twist. “I've not got the wrong end of the stick?”

“Christ, Buck,” Sam said. But he didn't sound angry. More like mildly annoyed. Bucky suddenly realised what the time was. It was one am. His usual spectacular timing. He mentally slapped himself.  

“Of course,” Sam said, “of course I do. Just…” Sam sounded frustrated now and Bucky really wished he wasn't so impulsive. “We can't talk like this… can you… look, put your camera on.”

Bucky did so, already cringing. Christina told him to communicate with Sam, yes, but he'd be willing to bet she'd have some thoughts about his timing. 

Sam put his camera on too. Sam was no longer in the Captain America uniform, he was wearing comfortable clothing sitting up on a bed. Bucky could see a no smoking sign to Sam's left. 

“You're in a hotel?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah,” Sam rubbed a hand over his head. He looked exhausted and Bucky felt even worse for dragging Sam into this conversation. Sam looked physically fine though. No sign of injury on his face or the parts of his body that Bucky could see. That was good. “I got an early start tomorrow. I'm still in Manhattan, got to catch a plane in  the morning.”

“Oh, you could have…” Bucky caught himself mid sentence. He was going to say that Sam could have stayed here with him. But his apartment wasn't really fit for overnight guests. Bucky had a bed, sure, he'd bought it during one of his trying to improve his apartment and make himself feel better phases, but he didn't have a mattress, or any bedding. Anyway, it would be weird having Sam stay the night now, wouldn't it? They weren't together. Bucky didn't have a spare room. He only had the one couch. 

“What's this about, Bucky?” Sam said, drawing Bucky's focus back to his original question. Bucky licked his lips anxiously, wishing more than ever that he hadn't said anything.

“It's stupid, really,” he hedged. “Christina just had me thinking about why people cared about me. So I thought I'd ask.”

“Isn't that something that you should be working out yourself?” Sam asked. It wasn't said unkindly, but it landed like a soft slap. He had tried. And he struggled with it. 

“I’m just trying to work it out,” Bucky said. “How we got  here. I know you used to hate me, I know you only helped me out because of Steve…”

Sam raised a hand. “I never hated you. You infuriated me. Sometimes you still do.” Bucky shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “You had me chase you all over Eastern European and I'm pretty certain you enjoyed it.”

Sam's tone was light, not angry or accusatory. So Bucky felt confident to continue, to push the matter a bit more.

“But you didn't do that for me, did you? You did that because Steve asked you to. Like you came to Wakanda because Steve asked you to.”

“No,” Sam said abruptly, he sat up straighter now, and all trace of humour was now gone. “No, Steve never asked me to come to Wakanda. They told him they were waking you up, and he couldn't be there. He was in Belarus. I offered to go, he never asked. And before you ask, I didn't offer just to make Steve feel better. I offered because I didn't like the thought of you waking up alone, in a strange country, surrounded by no-one you knew. I know you wanted Steve. I know you didn't want me.”

“That's not true, either,” Bucky said quickly. “I mean, of course I wanted to see Steve, I always wanted to see Steve but…” he swallowed. It was hard to say this out loud. “He often made me feel… worse, sometimes. In a way. His guilt made things worse. I liked it when you came. Do you remember the first thing you said to me that first time I came out of cryo?”

Sam shook his head.

“You said I looked like death warmed up.” Bucky saw Sam's face twitch, half amusement, half restraint. 

“It was just what I needed to hear,” Bucky said. “Steve would never have said anything like that to me. But you did. I liked seeing Steve, but every time it was you and not him, well,” he looked away, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. “I was always so happy when it was just you.”

There was a silence. A long silence. Bucky wasn't entirely sure how to break it, or even if he should. He could see Sam, likely wrestling with the same thoughts. 

Sam then cleared his throat. “I do care about you Bucky,” he said finally. “A lot. And it's got nothing to do with Steve. I care because you are brave, and you are brilliant, and kind, and you're the strongest person I know.”

“No, I'm not,” Bucky whispered. But it was loud enough for Sam to hear. 

“You are,” he said. “And I don't just mean because of the serum either. I mean here.” Sam touched his chest, above his heart. “And here.” He touched his head. 

Bucky had to turn the phone away for a moment to compose himself.

“I know you don't really think that.” His voice wavered as he spoke, because he wanted to believe so much that Sam meant these words. Every single one of them. But he knew it couldn't be true.

“Why do you know that?” Sam challenged him. 

“Because…” God, his voice actually broke and that was embarrassing. He coughed. “Because you said I was weak.”

Sam looked shocked. “What!? When?”

“Back here, when I…” Bucky closed his eyes, unwilling to actually look at Sam when he said this out loud. “When I kissed you and you shot me down. You said I was weak. You said I was…” it was hard to get the next two words out, because of the wash of shame that he felt just thinking them, “emotionally vulnerable”. 

“Oh God, Buck,” Sam breathed, and Bucky chanced a look at him. Sam was looking at him with an expression of sad bemusement. “I never said you were weak, Bucky. Is that how you took that? Oh god,” Sam suddenly had a minor epiphany. “That's why you reacted the way you did, isn't it? That's why you didn't speak to me for months! For fucks's sake, Bucky! Why didn't you just talk to me about this?”

Bucky bristled. He felt a sudden need to defend himself. “Well, how else was I supposed to interpret it? You said you didn't want to take advantage of me. Like I'm a… like I can't make my own choices… like I was a blubbering mess who couldn't even manage a kiss… I just…”

Bucky put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from talking, and making it worse. 

“Hang on.” Sam put the phone down on the bed, and Bucky could hear noises. Sam moving around, getting a drink, and then Sam was back on camera, a glass in his hand. 

“Let me tell you something, Bucky,” Sam said. “Back after Riley died I was a mess, a real mess. That's an understatement.”

Bucky remained silent, he could tell that this was important, and he didn't want to disrupt Sam's flow. 

Sam took a sip of his drink. Bucky could see the glass shake slightly. “I did a lot of things that I regret now, looking back. I went a bit nuts really. And I went out and I met all the wrong kinds of people. People who took advantage of my emotional state, and I did things I really really regret with people I wish I'd never met.”

This didn't sound like Sam, Bucky thought. Sam was always so much in control of himself. So composed. So sure. So calm. Grief can do things to a man, sure, but he found it hard to imagine Sam doing the kinds of things that he was talking about. The kind of things that Bucky himself had done. 

“I was emotionally vulnerable,” Sam said, “and people took advantage of that. Wouldn't you agree?”

Bucky felt really conflicted, and torn, because he could see where this was leading, he could tell where Sam was going with this. Because Sam wasn't weak. Sam had never been weak. And Sam was trying to get Bucky to see that he wasn't weak too, and that would go against everything that Bucky knew to be true about himself. A cognitive dissonance that he wasn't ready to face, not yet.

But Bucky nodded, because Sam was sharing something so deeply intimate and personal about himself, and Bucky needed to show Sam that he respected that. 

“Yes.” Bucky hoped that he sounded convincing enough. 

“Because I was suffering,” Sam said. “I was suffering from grief, and loss. I was depressed, I was lonely. And I reached out to people who should have known better. People who should have seen that I wasn't in the right place. But I was never weak. I was hurting.”

Bucky nodded. 

“And there you were,” Sam said. “In that moment, I could see what you were doing. You were hurting. You were sad. Just as I had  been. You wanted comfort, and assurance, and I was there. And I recognised myself in you. And when you kissed me I knew I had to shut it down. Because it wasn't really you. It was your pain.”

Bucky lowered the phone again, angling it up towards the ceiling so that Sam couldn't see his face, because he didn't want Sam to see how these words affected him. He could still see Sam however, looking slightly shaken but maintaining his composure.

"And that was the right thing for me to do, Bucky. And I won't ever say otherwise, so don't try to convince me that it wasn't. And don't say that I was calling you weak because I wasn't. You were never weak. And neither was I. But we were both vulnerable.”

“Okay,” Bucky said quietly.

“Stop making me talk to the ceiling,” Sam said firmly. “If you don't want me to see you we'll end the call, but I'm talking with you.” 

Bucky quickly angled the phone back so that Sam could see him. He didn't know what to say. Sam had been so honest and real with him, that he felt slightly shaken. 

“I shouldn't have brought this up,” Bucky said. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't…” Sam almost sounded frustrated. “We need to talk about these things. It's good to talk about these things. There's lots of things we need to talk about. Just… maybe not at 1am. And maybe in person.” Sam sighed. “You and your timing, Bucky.”

Bucky actually laughed, pleased that Sam didn't seem really annoyed. It was said with fondness.

“When will we meet properly?” Bucky asked. 

To his dismay, Sam shook his head. “I can't say, Bucky, I'm sorry. I've got to fly across the country tomorrow morning, and there's people to talk to and lots of things to organise. I can't…”

Bucky tried to hide his disappointment, but he was clearly doing a bad job of it. 

“I want to see you, Bucky,” Sam insisted. “If I could, I'd be over first thing tomorrow so we can talk. I'm glad we're talking. And even without that…” Sam looked slightly uncertain, he spun the glass round in his fingers. “Well, I do actually kind of miss you, when you're not around,” he admitted.

Bucky didn't wait a beat. “I miss you too,” he said instantly. “I… I really…” he stopped. Time to be sensible, Barnes, he told himself. He knew he was on the verge of going too far and saying too much. He'd already pushed Sam too much with this conversation and it was time to stop. If he carried on, he knew it wouldn't be long before he started declaring undying love for Sam right here and now, and that most definitely would be in the arena of too much. 

“I have to go,” Bucky said suddenly. “I mean… I don't have anything to do, I just…” he looked around him, feeling like a real idiot. “I'm going to say something really stupid in a minute,” he said, “and I think I just need to stop before I do. But it's not because of anything you've said, I promise.”

Sam looked slightly amused. “Okay,” he said. “No problem. I'll update you tomorrow. Goodnight, Buck.”

After the call ended, Bucky sat there for a moment, clutching the phone to his chest, mentally going over every word from the conversation and trying to work out if he'd been too… well, too much. But Sam had seemed genuinely okay with things, a bit surprised maybe but ultimately receptive, and Bucky had learned something new about Sam. This meant something, didn't it? Sam had entrusted something very personal to him, something that he probably hadn’t told many people.

He decided that it would be best not to agonise over this any longer. He imagined Christina would tell him he was overthinking and trying to assume the worst. Catastrophising. Instead he redirected his thoughts by bringing up a shopping app on his phone, intending to look at mattresses and bedding. 

He could make his apartment fit for guests, so that should Sam need to stay over in the area again, Bucky could offer that Sam stay here with him. And when Sam did next come over, they could talk properly about all the things that they still needed to talk about. And maybe, just maybe, things between them might be able to move forward. Perhaps not next time, but soon. 

Bucky touched a finger to his lips, recalling the feel of Sam’s lips on his. It wasn't something he’d liked thinking about before, because that kiss in his mind has been so intrinsically linked to all the horribleness that followed that it made him cringe out of horror and embarrassment every time he thought about it. But now, for the first time he was actually able to bring it back to his mind without the accompanying shudder of shame and humiliation.

Instead, he felt hopeful and excited. That maybe in the not so distant future something else could happen. Bucky closed his eyes and spent a moment imagining it. 

Sam next to him on the couch, close together, their hands entwined. Sam would shuffle closer, maybe he would reach out and turn Bucky's face towards him. Fingertips brushing his cheek. Sam would be the one to make the first move. He would be the one to kiss Bucky, because Bucky had made a mental promise to himself that it would have to be Sam making the first move. So that Bucky wouldn't fuck things up again. 

It would be wonderful. It would feel so right. They would hold each other and kiss. A proper kiss this time. Maybe Sam would deepen the kiss, run his fingers through Bucky's hair and Bucky would lean back ever so slightly so that Sam would be almost on top of him and…. and then…

Bucky opened his eyes and stared at the empty space on the couch next to him, with the ghost of Sam's lips still on his. Even though he was alone he felt slightly embarrassed, and ashamed. He’d never let himself have such a fantasy about Sam before. It felt almost wrong to have such thoughts. Almost disrespectful and unearned. 

But then… it was different now, wasn’t it? Because this was a fantasy that could become a reality. It was almost in reach. 

One day, he thought. This could be real.

This was only the beginning.

Notes:

I made a deliberate choice not to go over the events of the Flag Smasher showdown in detail, but to sort of show the highlights, as it were. I'm generally of the view that if I'm bored writing something, then people reading it are going to be bored too, and this just seemed more interesting to me, rather than getting bogged down in the details. This chapter is also incredibly long for pretty much the same reason - I didn't want to have a whole chapter just focused on the Flag Smashers, I'm ready to end that part of the story. So I didn't break it up, one chapter for the Flag Smashers and one for Sam and Bucky's conversation. It felt better to have the two parts together. Anyway, explanation over. See you in the next one! Hopefully won't be as long a wait as I am so glad to be done with the Flag Smashers now! I am ready and excited to move things on.

Chapter 53: Closure and other Fictions

Notes:

So this chapter continues a side plot that I introduced in Act 1 - It was one of the last four chapters in Act one - The Darkness Within Chapters - chapters 18 and 19 in particular cover the flash back memories in this chapter and what happened in 1978. It's been so long since then I thought a reminder might be helpful. Act 3 closes off a few things I introduced in Act one, but I'll provide reminders and signposting where I think they'll be helpful. Here is where the internal consistency / continuity of the story actually starts to matter haha. Let's see how I do with it.

Also I saw Thunderbolts this weekend. I loved (nearly all of) it. I have thoughts. But I won't share them because spoilers of course. But I liked it enough that I'm going to see it again next weekend.

Closure and Other Fictions

People were starting to go missing. In the days after the Flag Smasher fight and Sam's debut as Captain America, Bucky was glued to the news. The whole of Saturday and Sunday he barely spent a minute away from his television, his phone, or poring over newspapers. The news mainly focused on Sam, his photograph splashed all over the front pages, the focus of nearly every discussion, opinion pieces and social media hashtags.

To a lesser extent the news featured him and Walker. But as Sam was currently putting himself in the limelight, having his photograph taken with various political figures and giving interviews, there wasn't much attention left to spare for the other players. Which Bucky was very thankful for, as the last thing he wanted was to draw more attention to himself. 

And it was as he was flicking through article after article, clicking on links from news sites, to blog posts, to YouTube videos, that something caught his eye. A missing person with a familiar name. He had to double check it with the list he'd drawn up and sent to Christina. And yes, the person missing was one of the names on his list. A retired politician. Just vanished on Saturday morning. His wife was asking for anyone to share information about what might have happened. 

This was not likely to be a coincidence. Bucky searched for other names on his list. Most of them came back with nothing, or nothing recent as many of those on his list had been well known public figures at one point or another. But then he saw an article on an obscure news site, someone talking about an FBI raid on a neighbour's property, the inhabitants taken away in handcuffs in the early hours of Sunday morning. 

What this meant, Bucky realised, was that the government was taking action against the people on his list. And what better time to do it, he thought, than when the whole country was focused on Captain America. Avoid any fall out, keep the media silent, and just quietly make people disappear while everyone was turning the other way. A window of opportunity. No doubt the White House would give statements later on about how the people taken away were enemies of the state, terrorists, and this would all blow over. 

He made a mental note to keep an eye on what was happening, and then he would tell Sam. This might help Sam with his plans for Isaiah, if it helped Isaiah to feel safe enough to step out of the shadows. 

Bucky hadn't spoken to Sam all weekend, since their call at one in the morning. Sam had just been too busy to manage anything other than the odd text here and there. It was frustrating. Bucky now felt ready to talk to Sam about all the things he knew they needed to talk about, properly, and there was no longer the opportunity to do so. It could be days, maybe even weeks, before he and Sam got the chance to properly spend a decent amount of time together. The conversation on Friday night had opened a door and he was worried that there was a time limit to step through it. 

He continued to go through the names on his list, typing them into Google to see if there were any other mysterious disappearances. He faltered when about three quarters of the way down a very familiar name jumped out at him.

Brock Rumlow

The name hit him like a sledgehammer. He'd almost forgotten that he included Rumlow on this list. Rumlow, already known as Hydra due to his actions in 2014, had already received a prison sentence. Still under house arrest, Bucky presumed, since the blip resulted in the prisons being over capacity. 

Bucky didn't think it likely that anything would happen to Rumlow. The focus would be on the Hydra affiliated individuals that the government hadn't had any knowledge of previously. Not on those that were already well known. He started to type Rumlow's name into the search bar, but then stopped halfway. 

Why did it matter to him if something happened to Brock Rumlow? It really shouldn't. Bucky shouldn't care. In fact, Bucky should want Rumlow to receive the punishment he deserved. Like Christina told him, months ago, sure Rumlow served his time, but not for the crimes against Bucky. Not for his actions as the Winter Soldier's handler, because no-one knew about those. 

When he'd met Rumlow, earlier that year, Rumlow asked Bucky why he never told anyone about what Rumlow had done to him. Bucky cringed at the memory of the answer he gave:

 

It hurts to think of something bad happening to you

 

He was scared now to complete the search, because what if something had happened to Rumlow? He wasn't sure how he would feel about it. He should want Rumlow to be appropriately punished for all of his crimes. And yet, there was a part of him that still felt a draw to the other man. A part of him that felt slightly panicked that perhaps something bad had happened to Rumlow. For almost twenty years Rumlow had been his handler and his… his...

His mind struggled to come up with an appropriate descriptor. Lover? No. Christina would say ‘abuser’. Rapist. 

He didn't like that word. It hurt him somewhere deep within. A stabbing sense of shame and disgust and it made him shudder. 

He quickly cleared Rumlow's name from the search box and put his notebook to one side and returned instead to the news. Sam was due to give more interviews today and this was the only way Bucky would get to see Sam until goodness knows when. He wasn't going to miss a thing.

 

“I saw you on the news over the weekend,” Christina said to him in greeting when he arrived at therapy on Monday, 10am sharp. 

“I saw the news too.” Bucky sat down in his usual place, on the couch opposite Christina's armchair. “What did you think about Sam?”

She ignored his question, and brought the focus back round to him. “There's a lot of publicity surrounding you right now. What are your thoughts about that?”

Bucky thought back to some of the things he had read and heard about himself over the weekend. 

 

Winter Soldier: Villain or Victim

James Buchanan Barnes: Fallen Hero

Who did the Winter Soldier Kill: An Expose

 

He'd not really paid them much mind, as his focus had been mainly on Sam. 

“I don't really care what people think about me,” Bucky said. “At this point, I'm used to it. The negativity. The doubts. The questioning.”

“I saw you save people's lives on Friday,” Christina said. “People are talking about that, too. It's not all negativity and doubts.”

Bucky fidgeted. “Look, I know that,” he said. “I know what I did. Some guy thanked me. He didn't need to do that, I was trying to…”

“How did it feel,” she interrupted, “to be thanked?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“Don't say, ‘I don't know’.” Christina's voice was firm. “Or ‘it felt fine’ or ‘good’. Really think about it. Draw on what you felt in the moment.”

Bucky's mind went back to that moment when he'd pulled the people out of the armoured vehicle the Flag Smashers had rigged to explode. He'd been so caught up on adrenaline from the fighting, from the drama and the tension, so focused on the task at hand that he'd barely noticed as one guy had grabbed his arm earnestly and thanked him for saving them. Bucky had to carry on saving the other people, he'd not really had a moment to think about it at the time, but he had felt something.

“I felt… well…” Bucky ran a hand through his hair. His metal fingers caught on a tangle. It was really starting to get quite long now. He'd have to make a decision sooner or later about what he wanted to do with it. It wasn't at Winter Soldier lengths yet, but it probably wouldn't take much longer to get to that point. He could see the resemblance more and more every time he looked into the mirror. 

“Yes?” Christina prompted him. 

“A bit stunned, I think.” He dropped his hand from his hair and into his lap. “It was the heat of the moment. I don't know. I wasn't expecting it. But then…”

He remembered that he had felt a little uplifted after the man spoke to him. The man had grabbed Bucky's metal arm when he'd expressed his gratitude and did not immediately let go. There was no fear. In fact, none of the people he'd crossed paths with that evening had appeared scared of him in the slightest. Even when he'd arrived, dressed for battle with his metal arm out, people had treated him with respect. One officer had even called him Sergeant Barnes. Bucky wasn't even sure it was a title he was still permitted to use. And it gave him the same feeling that he felt later when the other man had thanked him for saving their lives. 

What was that feeling? He wasn't sure he could put a name to it. He tried to describe it to Christina as best as he could.

“Like it felt like I had done something good. And I could be pleased with myself for doing it.”

And then it hit him, what the word was. And it hit him because it was exactly the feeling he'd felt as he'd watched Sam soar through the sky above with the shield. And it was no wonder he'd struggled to find the word as it wasn't something he'd felt about himself for a very long time. A feeling he'd probably not felt since 1942. And even before then, it had been a rare feeling.  

“I felt proud,” he said quietly. And as he said those three words some enormous emotion started to build up in his chest, and to his horror he felt his eyes actually well up. 

Bucky swallowed. “It felt…” His voice stuttered slightly, and he had to take a breath to get himself back on track. Why on earth was this affecting him so much? 

“... Like I could do something good. Really good. And people were noticing it.” 

“A lot of people noticed it,” Christina pointed out. “It's not all been negativity about you on the news this weekend, you know?”

Bucky did know. But he'd deliberately not focused on news about himself, passing over it in his desire to just see more about Sam. 

He nodded. 

“It's a massive thing,” Christina said, “that you are able to feel pride in yourself. It's such a step away from guilt and shame. And I feel immensely proud of you too. Not just for what you did on Friday, but also for what you've told me just now. It can take a lot of courage to allow yourself to feel proud of your actions.”

Bucky tapped his metal fingers against his leg, suddenly feeling very exposed and uncomfortable with Christina's praise. He noticed her eyes drop to watch his fingers and he forced himself to hold them still, to stop the nervous tapping. 

“It affects you,” she observed, “to hear praise. To hear that you are brave, and that it is okay to feel proud of yourself.”

Bucky dipped his head so he didn't need to make eye contact with her, because he didn't want her to know that she was absolutely correct. Because he did feel proud of himself. And he could almost believe that it was brave to be able to voice that feeling of pride out loud. But he also felt so very conflicted. How was it right for him to feel proud of himself after everything that he'd done? One good deed does not undo a lifetime of bad ones. 

“Look at me.” It was an instruction but it was spoken more as a request, and he did look up at her then.

“James, you're allowed to feel proud. I want you to hear that. You are worthy of the gratitude that man gave to you. You saved his life.”

Bucky nodded. “I did,” he said quietly.

“You did a remarkable thing,” she said. “And you didn't have to do it.”

“Well…” Bucky said, thinking Sam wanted me there, I was hardly going to say no

“Did anyone force you to be there?” she asked. 

Bucky shook his head. 

“So you chose to be there?” she pressed.

Bucky nodded again, and licked his lips. 

“And you chose to save people's lives.”

He exhaled slowly. “I did,” he repeated, but louder this time. 

“And you feel proud of yourself, for what you did,” she said. 

“I do,” he said. “I do feel proud of myself.”

“Then I want you to sit with that feeling, knowing that it is a deserved feeling.”

Bucky jerked his head in agreement, and looked away from her finally, out of the window.

I am worthy, he thought, mentally paraphrasing one of Christine's affirmations. 

I am worthy of feeling pride in myself

He could almost believe it. Maybe one day he could believe it without an accompanying mental cringe. 

“A lot of people are going to be having opinions about you,” she said, “after what happened. There's going to be divided opinions. There'll be people who question you, there'll be people who raise you up. The important thing, what really matters, is that you know the good you did and why you did it.”

Bucky stared down at his hands in silence..  

“Is there anything you particularly want to talk to me about today?” Christina asked, after letting Bucky sit in silence for a little while. 

Bucky considered this. There were things on his mind. Mainly Sam-related things. But Christina had deliberately steered the conversation away from Sam earlier, and it made him realise just how much focus there'd been lately in their sessions about Sam. Christina hadn't said anything, but the point was not lost on Bucky. 

This is about you.

This wasn't couple's therapy after all. This was supposed to be Bucky, sorting out his trauma, not spending hours and hours waxing lyrical about Sam. 

He shook his head, wondering if Christina would let him leave. It had only been forty minutes, it seemed unlikely.

“In that case,” Christina leaned across to pull open a drawer. “I've been asked to give you something.”

Her tone was casual, but there was something about her body language that put Bucky on edge. Her hand hesitated just for a moment before it found the handle, and when she pulled the drawer open and fumbled for something inside she did it slowly, carefully, like she was playing for time. 

And then she pulled out an envelope, and sat back in her chair. And she fixed a look on Bucky and something in his gut twisted. He knew that look, it was the look she gave him whenever she was appraising his ability to handle whatever it was that was coming next.

“It's a letter,” she said. 

“I can see that,” he replied dryly. Christina made no move to pass it over to him, so he leaned over across the table with his arm outstretched for her to pass it to him.

“From Elizabeth Dugan,” she finished. Bucky's arm dropped. 

 

It's Timothy Dugan, Bucky, don't you remember me?

Dugan's final words echoed in his mind. The sound of screaming. The smell of blood. 

 

It was like being in an abattoir

 

And that little girl, arms wrapped around her brother, shaking and sobbing as he ripped her grandfather to pieces in front of them. Not just Dugan, but Dernier had been there as well. 

That had been 1978, in Dernier's home in the South of France. Elizabeth had been 12 years old then. Her brother even younger. And now she would be in her 60s. He remembered reading an article about her several months ago where she'd talked about what had happened. The trauma, and how it had affected her throughout the rest of her life. 

He remembered talking about this to Christina, Christina trying to put a positive swing on the fact that he'd spared their lives in spite of everything else he'd put those two children through.

“How is she writing to me?” His voice shook. 

“I've been told,” Christina replied, “that she's been trying to reach out for a while.”

Bucky recalled the article where Elizabeth Dugan spoke about her efforts to get answers. 

 

I found out he'd been pardoned and released. And no-one talked to me about it. No-one asked me my opinion. 

 

“One of her letters to the Department of Defense got flagged up and passed on to the Inspector General who passed it on to someone else, who passed it on to someone else. And then eventually a liaison from the White House reached out to her and Elizabeth asked for permission to write you a letter. Which was passed on to me, and…” she waved the letter in her hand. 

“Well, what does she want?” Bucky asked, his eyes glued to the letter like it was a bomb about to go off. 

“I believe,” Christina said, “that she would like to speak to you.”

Bucky stared at her in horror. “How can I do that?” he asked, feeling more than a little alarmed and panicked. “It would be like Yori all over again. You said…” suddenly his voice took on an accusatory tone, “you said I shouldn't do that again. I can't do that again. I just can't.”

“Let me make this absolutely clear,” Christina said, “you don't have to do anything. You don't have to talk to her. You certainly don't have to meet her. You don't even need to read this letter. I can give it back, unread. But if you do decide to do something, then you won't be on your own. We'll do this properly. In a safe, planned way that meets everyone's needs. Hers, but most importantly, yours as well.”

Bucky shook his head, barely able to keep up, and barely taking notice of what Christina was saying. All that was jumping out at him was that Elizabeth Dugan wanted to meet with him. She wanted to speak to him, and he couldn't fathom why on Earth she would want to do so. She'd probably want to know why he didn't kill her and her brother, he thought. A question even he didn't know the answer to. And he'd been asked about it, afterwards. 

 

Protocol dictates never leave witnesses

Correct. So why did you? That had been Ivanov, or maybe it had been Koslov. He couldn't remember which. 

That idiot Rostov wiped his memory

Hydra's greatest weapon is defective and of no further use

 

Hour after hour he spent in the Chair as they attempted to get answers from him as to why he'd not killed the witnesses. The pain. The uncertainty and the confusion. The horrible sense that he'd done something very wrong without knowing what it was. Flinching away as they'd pulled the halo down over his head, but they didn't care. They didn't care that he was in pain, hurt and scared. Just like all the rest of them so willing to take part in such cruelty.

He took a massive swig of water, and took a moment to get his thoughts back under control. 

“Have you read it?” he asked and gestured to the letter, still in Christina's hand.

“No,” she said.

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “It's been opened,” he said.

“I haven't read it,” she clarified, “someone else has. To make sure it doesn't contain anything… inappropriate.”

“Can you read it now?” he asked.

Christina looked down at the letter, turning it slightly as she did and Bucky could see his name James Barnes written on the front of the envelope in handwritten cursive. Something in his stomach lept as he realised that was probably Elizabeth's handwriting. 

Christina pulled out three sheets of A5 paper, all with neat handwriting on one side only. She looked through them briefly and then opened her mouth.

“Don't read it to me,” Bucky said quickly. “Just to yourself. And let me know…” He shrugged helplessly. “Just give me an idea of what she wants.”

Christina read through the letter slowly. Time seemed to slow down as it took her forever to finish reading it before she finally set the papers down onto the table in front of her. Her expression was unreadable.

“Well?” Bucky's heart pounded furiously in his chest.

“She says she heard a lot about you, growing up,” Christina said. “She heard a lot of stories and wants to know if they're true, from the war.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. That wasn't what he had expected. Although he wasn't sure what he had expected. Accusations probably, demands for answers. Maybe that was still to come.

“She says she'd like to speak to you properly,” Christina said. “She’d like to arrange a meeting.”

“You already told me that,” Bucky said, “does she say why?”

Christina nodded and looked down at the letter. “She says she thinks it will bring her closure.”

“Clos…” That fucking word again. Bucky suddenly found himself on his feet, pacing round, without even realising he had stood up.

“What does that even mean?” he griped at Christina as he paced back and forth. “Closure. It's not real. What a fucking joke.”

“James,” Christina said, “I would…”

“How can meeting me do her any good whatsoever?” He ignored Christina completely. “I was the cause of the worst moment in her entire life. You saw that article. She was in therapy for years because I ripped her grandfather to pieces in front of her. My friend. He was… he was my friend. I…”

Bucky wiped away angry tears and continued on.

“Imagine if someone said to me, ‘oh hey maybe you'd like to meet Lukin, or Zola or… or… or Fennhoff and talk to them about the horrible things they did to you' and I'd say ‘oh yeah sure I want to do that to get me some fucking closure.’”

He grabbed all three pages off the table, and glanced down, before quickly looking back up again. He wasn't sure why he'd picked up the letter, it had just been an instinct, and now he had it, he didn't want it. 

“James,” he heard Christina say, in her calm placid tone, “I understand where your mind is coming from, but those are not fair comparisons.”

“Don't!” he said sharply. He didn't need to hear it. He did not need to hear Christina's thoughts about comparing himself to Lukin, Zola and Fennhoff. 

“What difference does it make to her,” Bucky said, holding Elizabeth's letter up in his right hand. “Whether I made these choices or not? It doesn't change what happened. Stop trying to make me think it's all okay because I didn't have control over myself. I know I didn't. But it doesn't… It doesn't bring her grandfather back to life. It doesn't undo what she saw me do. It doesn't magically wipe away all her trauma. It was my hands. My face. My voice. I did those things. Don't you see that?” 

He saw Christina leaning forward in her hair, watching him intently. It made him feel uncomfortable. Without thinking he scrunched the papers up in his hand and hurled them onto the floor. He sat down heavily back on the sofa, breathing very fast. 

“There is no good that can come out of this,” he said. “She's wrong.”

He fell into an awkward silence, already regretting his outburst, as it didn't exactly make him look very stable. He was supposed to be past these disproportionate emotional outbursts and he expected Christina to have something to say about it and he braced himself for her to say something chastising. To do that thing she so often did that made him feel like a naughty school boy getting a tongue lashing from a teacher.

But she did not. She didn't speak immediately. She sat back slightly in her chair and her expression remained the same, calm and totally focused on him. 

“What you are feeling is absolutely valid,” she said. “All that anger, frustration, the hurt. And there is no expectation for you to do anything here whatsoever, and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. Not even to her.”

Her words had a calming effect and Bucky's breathing was already starting to slow down as the meaning sunk in. He didn't have to do anything if he didn't want to. He didn't have to meet Elizabeth. He didn't have to speak to her. He didn't even need to read the letter. His eyes rested on the letter, now lying in a scrunched up ball on the floor, and he felt a pang of remorse for what he'd done. Elizabeth Dugan had poured her heart and soul into that letter and he'd just disregarded it so callously. 

“And what you've told me,” Christina continued, “tells me a lot about where the pain still lies for you. You accept that you lacked agency. You accept the harm that has been done to you by others. The issue that remains here for you is the gap between knowing, objectively, that you weren't culpable and still feeling that deep down because it was your body, your hands, that carried out these acts that you still bear the moral weight for what happened. There's a fracture between what was done to you, and what you can't stop feeling responsible for.”

Bucky didn't reply. Instead he remained seated, opposite her, his eyes still fixed on Elizabeth's letter lying on the floor. 

“I think this could help shape some of our future sessions, if you're willing,” she suggested. “To talk about moral injury, the kind of deep internal conflict that comes from feeling responsible for things you weren't truly in control of.”

Bucky gave a small nod, because as usual Christina had managed to hit the nail on the head and pinpoint the root cause of his internal conflict. He felt some relief at hearing that there was a name for the thing that had eaten away at him for many years now, moral injury. But there was also a feeling of discomfort and unease, that this might mean approaching a place where he wasn't quite yet ready to go. 

“And I know closure has been a difficult concept for you for a long time now,” Christina continued. “And I understand why. It's often put forward as a neat ending. A resolution. But the reality is usually messier than that. It can be about finding meaning, or answers, or even just having the ability to speak and be acknowledged. Closure doesn't erase what happened, it creates a space to live alongside it.”

Bucky thought about Yori, and how Christina's words seemed to match up with his own thinking about whether he'd managed to give Yori closure. He still wasn't sure he entirely understood, but the memory of Yori finally being able to eat his son's favourite food stuck in his mind. 

Christina didn't push him for a response. Instead, she gestured to the letter. “What would you like me to do with this?” she asked. 

Bucky looked at the scrunched up pieces of paper on the floor.

“I can throw it away,” Christina suggested. “Keep it for you here, or I can ask them to return it to Elizabeth.”

“No,” Bucky said quickly. God, the disrespect. He imagined Elizabeth getting back her letter, all screwed up. That would be awful. 

“No,” Bucky repeated. He picked up the pieces of paper on the floor and smoothed them out. He still didn't look too closely as he didn't want to accidentally read any of it. He folded up the pieces of paper and reached out for the envelope. 

“I'll take it,” he said quietly, pushing the papers back into the envelope. “You can tell her you gave it to me. But I'm not going to read it. No, don't tell her that. Just tell her not to expect anything, ok?”

 

Later, when he returned home he pulled the envelope out of his pocket and stared at it. He meant what he said to Christina, he had no intention of reading the letter. He traced Elizabeth's handwriting with a finger, spelling out his name. She'd written those words. 

His thoughts went back to that night in 1978. To that young girl, with the butterfly clip in her hair wearing a pale pink dress with flowers along the neckline, stained with blood. He thought about the same girl now, an older woman in her 60s, desperately trying to reach out for answers, or whatever it was she hoped to get from him. And he felt awful, because he knew he wouldn't be able to give her what she wanted. He couldn't. And she couldn't give him what he really wanted, either. 

Forgiveness. 

He'd wanted forgiveness from Yori, but he'd never asked for it. Because he knew if he asked for forgiveness he would be making it all about him. It would be the same with Elizabeth. And anyway, how could he even begin to think of asking others for forgiveness when he couldn't even forgive himself?

Behind the television was the box that he'd mentally labeled things I don't know what to do with. It had been there ever since he'd got his things back from the Smithsonian, and it contained many of the items still that he had packed away, unwilling and unable to think of what to do with them. Things like photographs, letters from his family, his old uniform, his father's gun. He'd taken his books and Steve's sketchbooks out, they were all on display around the apartment. But the rest of the items remained hidden, packed away.. He pulled the box out now, opened it up and, without looking inside, thrust the letter deep into the bottom. He replaced the lid, and returned the box to its place behind the television.

Out of sight, out of mind. 

Chapter 54: My Life Story: Part One

Notes:

Okay, this chapter needs a content warning and I strongly advise you read it first.

This chapter contains graphic references to past sexual abuse, including non-consensual acts, coercion, and traumatic memories, as well as manipulative dialogue, emotional abuse and PTSD symptoms. There is a particularly detailed line of dialogue referring a past assault. This may be intense and triggering for some readers but it remains within the boundaries of an M rating (no on-page explicit sexual acts or violence, but referenced and implied in dialogue and flashbacks).

I've agonised over this chapter for a while because of this content and decided that it is necessary to depict in the way I have done. In act one we introduced themes of loss of sexual agency and sexual abuse, and now we are in act 3 it is necessary to return to those themes in order to help Bucky with his recovery journey. I will always let you know when we are on chapters that deal with this topic and I am open to hearing your thoughts if I am pushing the M rating too far and I will consider them seriously.

My Life Story: Part One

 

It was all because of that damn letter. So much for out of sight, out of mind. Bucky couldn't stop thinking about it. Thinking about what Christina told him. That Elizabeth wanted to meet him  because 

She thinks it will bring her closure

He couldn't shut off his brain from thinking about it. About closure. He kept circling back to it. About his meeting with Yori and his desperate desire to believe that he'd done Yori some good by telling him how his son had died. Trying to rationalise in his brain how speaking to someone who had done you a great wrong could possibly bring closure and peace. It wasn't like he had a reference point to go by. Everyone who had done him great wrong was dead. The main ones being Fennhoff, Lukin and Zola, of course. What could you possibly gain from sitting face to face with someone who’d made your life hell? What kind of closure came from that?

And that thought led to another, and then another and then another. 

He woke up the following morning with a flash of inspiration, and a desire to do something reckless and impulsive that he knew Christina would not approve of. Which meant it had to be done today, because today was a Tuesday and he didn't have therapy. 

He didn't give himself the opportunity to talk himself out of it, his mind was set. At just before 5am he was rushing out of his apartment towards the subway, headed towards Penn Station, Manhattan with the aim of catching the Acela Express to DC. A journey he had done several months ago, almost for exactly the same reasons. But he was determined that this time it would end differently.

Last time, he'd gone to see Rumlow to get answers and it had been an unmitigated disaster. Rumlow gloated, twisted things around, made sick insinuations and revelled in his cruelty. Bucky had left feeling small, dirty, disgusted and ashamed with himself. 

This time would be different. It had to be. He was stronger now. He understood the game Rumlow played, and this time, he wasn’t going to lose.

Bucky would have his say, and Rumlow would have to listen. There was nothing Rumlow had that Bucky wanted. There was no power imbalance, not anymore. Quite the contrary, Bucky had all the power now. And he was going into this with a clear head, with no expectations, so he couldn't be disappointed. He'd walk in on his own terms and walk out the same way.

And maybe, just maybe, this would help him understand what Elizabeth Dugan meant. Maybe this would reassure him that he had done right by Yori. Maybe it would help him to understand how meeting with someone who had hurt you might give you some measure of closure. 

And Rumlow was the only one left. 

 

The train journey took two and a half hours, long enough for his mind to change repeatedly. He recognised that he was acting impulsively, and that this was something that he'd struggle to justify to Christina. Especially after the disastrous meeting with Rumlow last time. He could already hear her voice in his head 

What on Earth were you thinking, James?

But it didn't sway him. He needed to do this. 

There was no hesitation this time as he approached Rumlow's apartment. No hanging around, no internal debate about what to say, no dithering at the intercom. As luck would have it, someone was just leaving as he arrived and without a second thought Bucky slipped into the apartment building before the door closed. For a brief, powerful moment, Bucky entertained the idea of slipping quietly and unannounced straight into Rumlow's apartment. It was only 8.30am, Rumlow may still be sleeping. As he walked up the stairs his mind played out a small fantasy of him looming over Rumlow while he slept, Rumlow's fear upon waking up and seeing him there. 

The idea felt good, powerful, but then could be a disaster if he broke in and then found out Rumlow no longer lived there. Instead he knocked and waited, deliberately positioning himself to one side of the door so that he couldn't be seen through the peephole.

It gave Bucky no small level of satisfaction to see the colour drain out of Rumlow's face the moment he swung the door open to see Bucky standing there. Rumlow had clearly just got out of bed, he looked sleepy and dishevelled, wearing a dressing gown and had bare feet.

“Christ,” Rumlow muttered. He turned around and went back into the apartment, leaving the door open. Bucky followed and closed the door behind him, noting that Rumlow still had a pronounced limp and moved as though he was in pain.

He felt a pang of sympathy for the other man, but then quickly squashed it down,

“Give me a minute would you?” Rumlow said. “I'm not exactly fit to entertain.” He gestured at his state of undress. 

Bucky nodded and waited patiently as Rumlow disappeared into a bedroom. His eyes roved around Rumlow's apartment. He'd not really taken it in when he was here before. It was very plain, lacking any kind of character, or colour. As if Rumlow were only passing through, rather than actually living there.

Rumlow emerged after a few minutes, now fully dressed. He stared at Bucky for a moment, then muttered, “I need a drink.” He went straight to the fridge and brought out a beer, opened it then downed about half the can in a single swig. He didn't offer Bucky anything.

Bucky remained silent. He was hoping to come across as enigmatic and mysterious. To fill Rumlow with a sense of dread and foreboding, but his silence was because now he was here he didn't know what to say. 

Rumlow sat down at the table and stretched his bad leg out, groaning as he did so. 

“Saw you on the news,” he said, waving a hand towards his television. “I see you've been keeping busy, playing at being a hero.” 

Rumlow drained the rest of his can and scrunched it up in his hand. 

“Get me another would you?” he asked. “My leg…”

Bucky was over towards the fridge before he could stop himself, grabbing Rumlow a second drink and passing it over to him. Muscle memory from his previous life. Too late he realised what Rumlow had done. He was starting to feel like he was losing control of the situation, and wracked his brain with how to get this back on track. The reason why he was here. He sat down in the chair opposite Rumlow.

“Helping out our new ‘Captain America'.” Rumlow made those ‘speech mark' gestures with his fingers. Something people seemed to do a lot these days. “Our glorious leader.” 

Bucky watched silently as Rumlow opened the second can. 

“Is that just what you do?” Rumlow asked. “Just go with the shield, like a package deal? You just get passed from owner to owner?”

Bucky swallowed. It felt like he had forgotten how to speak. 

Rumlow took another long swig. Then he fiddled with his phone and brought up a photograph of Sam, in his new uniform and held it out for Bucky to see. Rumlow wouldn't know this, but it was one of Bucky's favourite photographs that had been on the news over the weekend. Taken from Friday night, just after Sam had given his speech. He looked tired, but heroic. Human, but powerful. 

“Are you sleeping with him?” Rumlow asked crudely.

This was enough to finally shock Bucky out of his silence.

“No.” He issued an emphatic denial. “Of course not.”

Rumlow stared at him. “But you want to, right?” 

Bucky felt his mouth drop open slightly. Of all the things that he could have imagined Rumlow saying, this had not been something he would ever have anticipated.

Rumlow fiddled with his phone again and made a swiping motion. A video started playing on the television. Bucky recognised it instantly. It was the same one he'd watched in the early hours of Saturday morning. Sam giving his speech but the cameraman was focused on Bucky, zooming in to show his reaction. 

Rumlow paused the video, and Bucky stared at his own face on the screen. 

“You used to look at me like that,” Rumlow said.

Bucky blinked. “Like what?”

“For fucks's sake, Barnes, look at yourself. Gazing at Wilson with that sappy look of adoration, like he hung the fucking moon.” 

Bucky suddenly recalled what he overheard Sarah saying to Sam last weekend. 

He looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky. He's smitten

Not for the first time Bucky cursed himself for being so obvious, for showing his feelings so plainly on his face for everyone to see. 

Rumlow muttered something unintelligible and turned the television off. 

“You know you're deluding yourself, don't you?” Rumlow said. 

Bucky tapped his fingers on the table. 

“You're not a hero,” Rumlow said, “they'll never let you be the hero, not after everything you've done. And Wilson, he won't have you. It'll affect his image. His credibility. Captain America and the Winter Soldier!” Rumlow laughed, and pulled a face.

Bucky wasn't bothered about Rumlow's words about being the hero. But what he said about Sam, that hit deep. It had not occurred to Bucky until this very moment the difficulties posed to him and Sam having a relationship now that Sam was Captain America. And now Rumlow had said it, it suddenly felt very obvious. 

“Or maybe you're just happy pining after him,” Rumlow said. “Did you have a bit of a thing for Rogers too?”

“You're so disgusting.” Bucky took Rumlow's drink off him and downed the rest of it. 

“I'm being watched, you know,” Rumlow said. “They'll be reporting back right now, freaking out, because you've come to visit me.”

Bucky frowned. There'd been no-one watching Rumlow the last time he'd come. He'd hung around long enough surveilling Rumlow himself to realise that. 

“Why are they watching you?” he asked.

Rumlow shrugged. “Started last week.”

Bucky had an inkling this had to do with the list of names he'd given Christina, and the people who had already started to go missing. 

Rumlow suddenly leaned across the table and grabbed Bucky's gloved right hand. “Something bad is going to happen to me,” he said. He looked genuinely frightened, not a look that Bucky was used to seeing from him. “And now you turn up, out of the blue. It's like fate. You can help me.”

Bucky pulled his hand away. “Why on Earth would I want to help you?” 

“I was good to you,” Rumlow said. “We understood each other. No-one else ever got you like I did. We worked well together. You remember the time you snapped, freaked out and ran off? I covered for you. I hid the bodies. Because I didn't want you to get into trouble. Because I cared about you.”

Bucky had a vague recollection of the incident that Rumlow was talking about, but not enough to be able to judge whether Rumlow was being honest about how he was presenting it. 

“I can't leave by myself.” Rumlow grabbed Bucky's hand again, more forcefully this time, gripping it so hard that if he hadn't been a super soldier it would have hurt. “I'm weak. I can barely walk. But you can help me. There's places we can go.”

“No,” Bucky said. He let Rumlow maintain his hard grip on his hand. Bucky should be feeling victorious. He had Rumlow begging him for help, scared and desperate and Bucky had all the power. But instead he felt disconcerted, confused, and a little bit worried. 

“I was nice to you.” Rumlow's voice was accusing, and Bucky felt a pang of guilt. “We had a bond, you and me. You remember Algeria?”

Bucky stood up suddenly, snapping his hand away from Rumlow's so forcefully that Rumlow was almost pulled off his chair. 

Of course he remembered Algeria. It was some kind of horrible and malicious curse that he could remember his first time sleeping with Rumlow when he still couldn't remember his first time with Jack. A memory he would much rather have than the memory of the time Rumlow finally built up the courage to go all in and fuck the Winter Soldier properly.

“I made it good for you,” Rumlow insisted. “You enjoyed it. You wanted it. I looked after you because I cared about you. No-one else would have done the same, and I know there were others before me. You think they would have given you any of the consideration I did?”

“Shut up!” Bucky slammed his metal hand down on the table and it splintered down the middle, the two halves collapsing on the floor. Rumlow remained seated, staring down at the destruction. Bucky's breath came out in quick heaving bursts, as he forced himself not to grab Rumlow by the throat and choke him to death. 

Rumlow looked up slowly at him and there was a look in his eyes that Bucky didn't like to see. It wasn't fear. It was something dark and malicious. A cruelty. 

“Act like you hated it all you want.” Rumlow's voice was low and thick with mockery. “But I remember those pretty little noises you used to make when you came all over my hand.”

Bucky froze, stunned by the audacity of the other man. His heart slammed against his ribs and for a moment he couldn't breathe. A wave of shame engulfed him. 

But he wouldn't let Rumlow have the satisfaction of seeing how much his words affected him. He wouldn't let Rumlow win. 

Bucky pushed the broken bits of table out of the way and stood over Rumlow, grabbing him by a shoulder and leaning over so they were at eye level. 

Rumlow licked his lips. “Barnes…”

Bucky squeezed Rumlow's shoulder hard, and Rumlow fell silent.

“You've spoken enough,” Bucky said. “Now I've got some things to say, and you're going to listen.”

Rumlow closed his mouth and nodded. 

“I don't care what happens to you,” Bucky said. “I don't care if they come storming in here tomorrow and drag you off kicking and screaming to Guantanamo Bay. I have no intention of helping you. I hope you rot.”

He let go of Rumlow's shoulder and stood back. Even now, even after saying this, there was still guilt within him. Misplaced and irrational, he knew that. But he couldn't stop himself from feeling it. 

“I never thought I'd get an apology from you, even before we met last time and you laughed in my face about it,” Bucky continued. “But I had hoped, maybe, to get some acknowledgement from you. A flicker of insight. That somewhere within that rotten soul of yours, you'd at least recognise what you did.”

He felt his faw tighten. “I can see now that that was naive. Because you're just the same as you always were. A smug, self assured bastard who never thought he did a damn thing wrong.”

And then he added, quieter now, “but at least you're honest. You could have lied and pretended to be sorry. And I would have believed you. I might even have helped you.”

“That's quite a speech,” Rumlow said. “You work on that before coming here?”

Bucky didn't even blink. “No,” he said flatly. “It just comes out naturally when I'm talking to garbage.”

He headed towards the door.

“Wait,” Rumlow said, pulling himself to his feet and following. He let out a small yelp of pain and Bucky turned to see Rumlow grasping his leg, a grimace on his face. Bucky withheld the urge to rush to Rumlow's aid. He crossed his arms and waited. 

“There's still things I can do for you,” Rumlow said. He was speaking very fast, worried that Bucky would just vanish and leave. “You had questions for me last time, I could answer them.”

“I already sorted that out myself, thanks,” Bucky said coolly. 

“Well, I'm sure there's more.” Rumlow stepped closer. “I'm sure there's lots you don't remember. And I know a lot. Before you came to the States, Pierce and I had a handover with Karpov and he told us everything about you.”

Bucky couldn't pretend not to be curious about this. “Like what?”

Rumlow's eyes flashed with triumph, and he made another step towards Bucky, clearly feeling emboldened by Bucky's interest.

“Well,” Rumlow said, and he appeared to be thinking very hard, shifting through what he knew to find something that would trigger Bucky's interest. 

“There was an interesting incident in China, in the 70s,” Rumlow said. “You remember that?”

Bucky shrugged non committedly, but inside his heart was beating faster and faster. Rumlow wasn't bluffing. Rumlow did know things. Bucky still held so much curiosity for all the blank spaces in his past. For all that he tried to profess to himself and to Christina that he didn't need to know everything that happened over seventy years, it was a constant source of frustration and anxiety that there was so much he didn't know and remember. 

The lack of response had Rumlow searching through his mind for something else. “Okay then,” he muttered. “What about South of France, 1978?”

Bucky felt a pang as this turned his mind towards Elizabeth Dugan and her letter, the entire reason that he was here. He forced himself to hide his inner thoughts. He let out a small laugh that he hoped sounded convincing, trying to appear dismissive and scathing. 

“You'll have to do better than that,” Bucky said. “I already know that one. Try again.”

Rumlow then launched into a desperate rendition of dates, and names and places. Some of which Bucky recognised, knew and remembered, others which conjured up little more than a vague familiarity, and most which he had no recollection of at all. Through it all Bucky remained stoic, arms crossed, trying to hide the frantic beating of his heart and hoping that Rumlow wouldn't see the slight quiver in his legs. It was becoming glaringly obvious that Rumlow knew too much. He probably knew everything. Meanwhile Bucky had so little knowledge of his past. It hurt, really hurt, to be given proof that Rumlow knew so much more about his life story than he himself did. Perhaps more than Bucky would ever know.

He'd had enough. Bucky stepped closer to the door and reached out to pull it open.

Rumlow continued speaking, his voice getting faster and faster in his desperation to land on something that Bucky would respond to. Some way of getting the upper hand and having Bucky need him. 

“Colonel Markarov,” he said, “the incident in Vietnam. The other Super Soldier.” Bucky could only imagine this meant Isaiah Bradley. “You remember that?” No response. Bucky pressed down on the door handle.

“What about your pal, Rostov?” Rumlow said, desperation fully evident now that he could see Bucky was leaving. “You remember what happened to him?”

Two things suddenly leapt into Bucky's mind, as if from nowhere. A faint memory of a man leaning over him, trying to force a mouth guard through Bucky's clenched teeth. The buzzing of electricity, his arms restrained. A whispered This is mercy

And the other, was the same flash he'd had in Christina's office only last week. His own voice 

My name's James. I think… I think my friends call me Bucky. You can call me Bucky too, if you want.

It took every ounce of self control that Bucky possessed not to give any sign to Rumlow that his words had connected.  Rumlow was still reeling off information. Bucky forced himself to stay steadfast. Open the door, walk through, close it behind him. That's what he told himself he had to do. Every instinct in him was screaming at him, turn around, ask Rumlow about Rostov. This is important. But he knew he mustn't. He mustn't give Rumlow that power over him.

Bucky spoke, loudly, interrupting Rumlow's flow. 

“I don't need you,” Bucky said. And he was pleased that his voice was firm and didn't show any sign of his inner thoughts and turmoil. “I don't want anything from you. Your twisted memories, your cheap lies, and your fucked up idea of care. I know what you're trying to do, and you're pathetic at it.”

Bucky pulled the door wide open.

“You better watch your back, Brock.” His voice dripped with malice. “People are going missing. Maybe you'll be next.”

He slammed the door shut behind him. 

 

The journey back home to Brooklyn passed in a blur. Bucky didn't even register leaving the apartment building, the walk back to the station and the train journey back passed in what felt like seconds. Only when he stepped into his own apartment and shut the door behind him did it all come rushing back.

Bucky sank against the door, sliding down it until he was sitting on the floor. Rumlow's voice echoing in his ears 

You remember Algeria?

You wanted it. You enjoyed it. I made it good for you.

And the worst:

I remember those pretty noises you used to make

Bucky grabbed his head in his hands and buried his face into his knees, and pressed his hands tight over his ears as though this could silence Rumlow's words, and he let out a low moan.

He was relieved that he'd managed to wait until he got home to think about this, and avoided having a panic attack in the streets of DC, or on the train. In public with people all around. Like before. At least he'd been able to avoid that. 

He had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but images shot across his brain regardless. Yes, he remembered what happened in Algeria, all too well. Rumlow's excitement, but also his hesitance. His fear that he might be pushing the Winter Soldier too far. 

You have to obey me

You're not allowed to hurt me

He remembered other times. Rumlow's lips on his. His voice

For fucks's sake stop being such a dead fish and kiss me back

And he did, because he'd been ordered to

He remembered Rumlow taking his hand, never the metal one, of course, and guiding it down over Rumlow's stomach, past the waistband of his trousers, lower still, until the Soldier's fingers curled around him like they’d been trained to. 

Not the Soldier's fingers. His fingers. 

You want me to return the favour? Well, you'll have to get better at it first

A wave of nausea and Bucky knew he was about to be sick. He threw himself towards the kitchen sink just in time for bile to heave out of him. He'd eaten no food today at all. His hands grasped the sides of the sink and he realised that he was quivering from head to toe. He ran the tap and washed his mouth out. 

Rumlow said he'd cared for Bucky. That Bucky had wanted it. That he'd made it good for him. Is that what Rumlow really believed? Was it true? Because Rumlow was right, there were times when it did feel good, when his body responded. But that didn't mean he wanted it, did it? He remembered Christina addressing this with him once but he'd been so ashamed he'd barely paid her any attention. But she said, didn't she, that just because he might have felt pleasure, it doesn't mean he wanted it, right?

But Rumlow said…

“Fuck Rumlow,” Bucky whispered, as he stared down at the running water. “Fuck him.”

Bucky, still feeling sick, and ashamed, and humiliated and dirty, entered the bathroom. He stripped and turned the shower to its coldest setting. Stepping into the freezing cold water took his breath away. But it succeeded in stopping the memories from flashing through his head. He then grabbed his body wash, a sponge and proceeded to thoroughly clean himself all over. Wiping away the stain that was Rumlow. If only it could be that easy.

When he finally emerged from the shower, he was starting to feel a little bit better. Cold. But less tense and on edge. 

He found a text from Sam when he picked up his phone. A missed call, followed by a text. Bucky read the message. Sam was hoping that he might be able to be in New York soon and he wanted to meet up. He ended the message with I'm looking forward to seeing you. 

Bucky stared at the message, remembering Rumlow's cruel words.

Captain America and the Winter Soldier

He won't have you. It'll affect his credibility

Rumlow had been trying to hurt him, but he was right wasn't he? All this time Bucky had been entertaining hopes of a relationship with Sam, but how could that be possible? Why hadn't this occurred to him before? Yet another insurmountable block.

Bucky sank down onto the couch and reread Sam's message. Several times.

I'm looking forward to seeing you. That's what Sam had written. Because he wanted to spend time with Bucky. Because Sam liked Bucky and enjoyed his company. He remembered Sam on the phone call late on Friday night. Sam saying he missed him. Sam saying he cared about him, and sharing the reasons why.

Real care. Not Rumlow's twisted version of it. 

It was stupid to listen to Rumlow. Rumlow had been trying to get under Bucky's skin. Bucky wouldn't let Rumlow have this victory. He wouldn't let Rumlow win. 

Bucky wrote a message back to Sam asking Sam to let him know when.

I'm looking forward to seeing you too, he wrote. He resisted the urge to add how much he missed Sam. It felt like a bit too much. 

It was growing dark outside. Bucky was surprised that he had no messages or missed calls from Christina. Rumlow said he was being watched. She surely knew by now what he'd been doing today. He played with the idea of ringing her but abandoned the idea. She could always call him, and he would answer, but he was going to see her tomorrow morning anyway. And he'd have to tell her all about this meeting with Rumlow. It was going to be Hell. 

But right now, he had other thoughts on his mind. He needed to keep Rumlow out of his head, and he was pleased that he had something else to occupy his mind with. 

Rostov. 

What about your pal, Rostov? You remember what happened to him?

And the memory that had evoked in him.

My name's James. I think… I think my friends call me Bucky. You can call me Bucky too, if you want.

That was linked to Rostov, he was certain of it. It had come to his mind so quickly and so easily, the moment Rumlow had said his name. But no matter how much he wracked his brain, he couldn't make the pieces fit together. He couldn't even recall Rostov's face. 

But Rumlow had given Bucky more than just a name and an impossible to place memory. He'd given Bucky another memory as well. One that at least helped him place Rostov. The memory of a man, faceless and blurry, forcing him into the Chair and feeding him some bullshit about this being mercy. He knew exactly when that happened, because he remembered telling Christina about a memory he'd had. 

I swear to God Rostov, if you say the word protocol one more time I will shoot you

General Markarov. 1963. The Winter Soldier had gone nuts and freaked out, leaving 20 dead bodies and at least 15 wounded. General Markarov finally getting him sedated and under control, bashing his head against the wall

When are you going to learn that a good soldier follows orders

And Rostov was there. Bleating on about protocol while the General was threating to beat, fuck and zap it out of him or some such cruel crap. 

Bucky pressed his hands to the sides of his head and tried to force the memory to show itself more clearly, but it was fuzzy. Details evaded him. But he remembered Rostov taking him to the Chair and begging him not to make a fuss. 

Don't make me do it. Not again, the soldier had said. Kill me

And Rostov saying, This is mercy

Bucky stood up suddenly and crossed the room over to the small cabinet where he kept his notebooks. He began pulling them out and leafing through them. These were all the wrong notebooks. Too recent. These were the notebooks he started after being released from the Raft last year. He needed to go back further. He pulled open the lower drawer and stared at the contents. 

These were the notebooks that he'd filled out while on the run, after finally breaking free from Hydra in 2014. These were from that time when he was learning how to be human again.  With a slightly shaky hand he reached in and carefully started to pull them out, one by one. Until he reached the one he was looking for. 

The first one. The one he'd shoplifted from the gift shop at the Smithsonian, merely days after the fight with Steve on the helicarriers in DC. He'd gone to the museum, seen his own face, and realised his connection to the strange man who'd called him ‘Buck’ and refused to fight him. 

He opened it up carefully, almost reverently, and one of the postcards he'd also taken from the gift shop slipped out. There Steve was, in all his Captain America glory, staring out at him. Bucky quickly shoved the card back into the drawer and instead turned his attention to the notebook. He couldn't remember the last time he'd opened it. 

All these notebooks had been confiscated from him in 2016, when he was captured in Romania and detained in Berlin. But he'd got them back, eventually. He hadn't opened them since. Just kept them. He never wanted to look at them. Never wanted to see the evidence of just how disjointed and broken his mind had been, but he was certain there would be something of use there. 

He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning each page carefully to make sure he wasn't overlooking something important. Words and phrases jumped out at him as he did so.

Page after page filled with his name over and over. 

Bucky

Buck
James
Barnes

Buchanan

Jimmy

Jamie

Sergeant 

 

Pages of Steve's name. Captain America. Steve Rogers. 

He'd scrawled ‘brother’ in large letters across two pages with Steve's name written all around it. 

Bucky flipped through the pages. It was eerie going through this. His life story, written by the man who he no longer was. 

Pages of pages of random nonsensical scribbles. He'd written in English, German, Russian, French, and many more languages. A random jumbled assortment of words, memories, and feelings. He started sentences in one language and finished in another.

 

72 stunden

I am ein Zug на рельсах and I не могу deviate von meinem Weg.

Was ist the only mission, которая осталась?

Die only mission — подчиняться

Готов подчиняться always ready

Screaming Почему ist immer screaming?

Steve, wie war mein Name? Стив Стив СТИВ Bucky. Bucky. Bucky. Или это просто noise?

 

There was so much more. He flipped quickly through, not wanting to linger on the reminder of how lost and confused he'd been.

And then he found the pages he was looking for. Names. Hydra names. 

He leaned closer as it was hard to decipher his barely legible scrawl. Names he'd started to write in English script, but then for some reason he'd switched to Cyrillic half way through. He pitied the poor CIA agents who'd had to go through all these notebooks and make sense of them. 

And there he found the two names he was looking for. Proof that he was on the right track. 

General Markarov

Rostov

Grouped together along with a few other names of people from that era. He ran a finger over Rostov's name. And then frowned as he noticed he'd scribbled something next to Rostov's name. It was hard to read. Something else he'd started in one language and ended in another, and neither of them were English. And his handwriting was absolutely atrocious in both Latin script and Cyrillic script, like he'd been rushing to get his thoughts down as quickly as possible before he forgot them again. 

Höh? No. The umlaut was nearly invisible. Maybe just Hole? Was it German, English, some Scandinavian language?

If it was Swedish it could be Hål. That meant hole.

If it was German it could be Höhle. That meant cave. 

Next to it was definitely Cyrillic. He squinted at it. Tried to read it out loud.

“Te…ney? Ten…ei”

The pieces started falling into place. 

 

Höhle теней

Cave of Shadows. 

 

He felt a prickle in the back of his neck, and a chill ran down his spine. That meant something. He didn't know what. But it filled him with a sense of dread and foreboding.

And then underneath that he'd written in even messier handwriting:

Ростов weiß, что das bedeutet.

Another almost indecipherable mix of German, Russian and his appalling handwriting. But Rostov's name was clearly evident at the start and the rest fell into place quite quickly:

Rostov knows what this means. 

There was nothing else on the page that helped him. He flicked through the rest of the notebook, but found nothing else that was useful. He had no memory of ever writing this. 

“The babbling of a madman,” he muttered, as he shoved the notebooks back into a drawer. “It’s just a mindless spew of words. It means nothing.”

But he didn't believe himself, not even for a second. 

Notes:

For Bucky's old notebook I used Google translate to give me mash ups of sentences in English, German and Russian. I have no idea if they make any sense at all, but they don't really need to given that they're the result of Bucky's confused mind in the immediate aftermath of his escape from Hydra.

These are what the sentences are supposed to say:

72 hours
I am a train on the tracks and I cannot deviate from my path
What is the only mission?
The only mission is to comply
Ready to comply always ready
Screaming. Why is there always screaming?
Steve, what was my name? Steve Steve Steve. Bucky Bucky Bucky. Or is it just noise?

Also I have updated the tags slightly and the end chapter count (once again). I've not changed anything in the tags specifically just tidied them up a bit.

Chapter 55: My Life Story: Part Two

Notes:

Another content warning for this chapter. This delves into the therapeutic aftermath of Bucky's visit to Rumlow in the previous chapter. It includes detailed references to sexual abuse, coercion, grooming, rape, bodily autonomy and trauma-related flashbacks. These topics are explored in dialogue and recollection, including semi-detailed descriptions and emotional fallout. This remains in keeping with the M rating of the story but, as I said in the last chapter, I am happy to consider adjustments if I have pushed the M rating too far.

This is a very heavy topic and potentially very triggering. I have worked hard to approach this in a respectful, sensitive and not gratuitous way. Please note, I am not a therapist or a mental health / trauma expert in any way. When writing this chapter, as with my previous therapy chapters, I have drawn on learning and training I have completed for my job, and also from my own personal experiences in therapy. I have done my best to make this as realistic as possible, but I have my limitations and this is still just a fictional representation.

My Life Story: Part Two

“I heard that you had a busy day yesterday.”

So Rumlow was right when he said he was being watched. 

Bucky sank down into his usual place, opposite Christina. “You could have given me a moment to bring it up first. I was going to tell you.”

“Were you?” She leant forward, elbows on her knees and fixed him with a stare.

“We’ll never know now, will we?” he said. 

Christina looked away briefly and let out the smallest of sighs. There was no anger. No frustration. She just appeared resigned, and weary, which was infinitely worse. 

“We just spoke about this last week,” she said. “About you rushing off on your own, without telling anyone, and doing things that aren’t safe.”

Bucky swallowed. 

“I’m not even going to ask you why you didn’t tell me,” she said. “Because I know why. It’s the same as last time. And the time before. You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t approve.”

Bucky felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. He said nothing. Because, of course, as usual she was right on the money. 

“We keep having this same conversation,” she said. “Your constant determination to continue to put yourself in harm’s way. You get fixated on something and you won't let it drop.”

“That’s not what this was,” Bucky said quickly. 

“So what was it?” Her question came as a challenge.

“It was that letter you gave me,” he said. “Elizabeth’s letter.”

She sat back, looking slightly surprised. “Did you read it?”

Bucky shook his head. “It just got me thinking about closure. About how speaking to someone who’d harmed you might help. And that’s when I thought about Rumlow.”

“And your previous visit wasn’t perhaps an indication that this probably wouldn’t be a good idea? You already did this, and it went very badly. And yet, here we are, having the same conversation.” 

“It was different this time,” Bucky said. 

Christina closed her eyes. After a moment she opened them. “Okay. Why was this time different?”

“Because I won,” Bucky said. 

“You won.” Christina repeated his words slowly. “What did you win, exactly?”

Her tone was neutral, but Bucky could tell she was restraining herself. 

“The… interaction,” Bucky said. “I won the conversation.”

Before she could interject he continued. “He was scared. Begging me to help him and I refused. I walked away. He tried to draw me back in but I said no. I had the last word.”

He remembered the triumphant feeling he’d had at seeing Rumlow debase himself, trying desperately to think of some way to keep Bucky from walking away.

“I don’t see that you won anything,” Christina said.

“Well, I’m glad I went,” Bucky said firmly. “I’m glad I got to look him in the eye and tell him what a sad piece of trash he is. I hope he rots.”

“And afterwards?” she asked. 

Bucky swallowed, and played for time while his mind raced to give her a convincing response. “What do you mean?”

“When you got home,” she said, “and were alone with all those thoughts. Are you telling me that seeing him again had no negative impact on you at all?”

He couldn’t lie. “No,” he muttered. “I’m not saying that. Yeah, I had some thoughts, but I dealt with them. I had a shower, I thought about something else. I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t like last time.”

Yes, he was glossing over the reality a little bit, the specific details. But it was broadly true. A vision of himself rose in his mind’s eye, vomiting bile into the kitchen sink and quivering from head to toe. How hard he scrubbed himself in the shower, with icy cold water stabbing into him all over like little knives.

“We haven’t properly explored this yet,” she said. “After last time. After you told me about his role as your handler, and the sexual abuse. You didn’t want to. And you went off and did this alone, without any preparation and without any consideration for the fallout. I find it hard to believe that this had such a small impact on you.”

She was right about all of it. Ever since his last meeting with Rumlow, she’d tried to get him to talk about it, but he always refused. It just felt too humiliating, too embarrassing. He’d always shied away from the topic. And then all the stuff with the Flag Smashers had popped up and taken the focus away completely.

Bucky was just now realising that his rash decision yesterday had brought the focus back onto Rumlow. And he had a feeling that she wasn’t going to let it slide this time. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “How can I convince you that it’s different now? I’m different now. Last time I went, Rumlow walked all over me. Yesterday it was the opposite. Last time I told Rumlow it hurt to think of something bad happening to him. This time I told him that I don’t care what happens to him. Because I don’t. People are going missing, did you know that? The people on my list.”

Christina didn’t show any sign that she either knew or didn’t know what he was talking about.

“He’s being watched, he might vanish mysteriously too at any moment. That’s why he was so terrified. He knows something is going to happen to him.”

“And if it did?” she asked. “If he did get taken in, how would you feel about it?”

“I’d be thrilled,” Bucky said. He saw a look of doubt on her face. “Really. He could vanish and be locked away forever and it would be less than he deserves. How can I…?” Bucky shrugged helplessly. “How can I convince you that this is true? I’m not lying to you. I’m not lying to myself either.”

And then he got a flash of inspiration. Something that could convince her. Before he could second guess himself, get cold feet, he carried on. 

“I know,” he said. “I know how. I want you to tell them. I want you to tell them everything that that man did to me.”

“Tell who, what?” she asked.

“Whoever it is you report to,” Bucky said. “Who you used to send all my notes to. The people who apparently seem to spend all their time sticking their noses into my business. That guy who was at the hospital. Colonel Rhodes too, probably, I bet he’s all over it.”

“And what, exactly, do you want me to tell them?”

“What, you want details?” Bucky asked, his voice rising. He was starting to lose control of himself a little bit, he could feel it. He should probably stop talking. But he needed to convince her that Rumlow didn’t bother him anymore, that Rumlow had no power over him anymore. 

“No,” Christina said, “I want to make sure I understand what you’re asking me to do.”

“You tell them…” Bucky barely heard her. His heart was pounding a million times a minute and it was all he could hear. Everything else in the room seemed to disappear. Something was screaming at him, inside his head, removing all sensible thought, and the words just poured out of him. 

“You tell them that the first time it happened was sometime in the late 1990s. After Karpov traded me in to the Americans because he was fed up with me,” he said. “The first time it really hit Rumlow that he had full control over someone and he wanted to test how far he could push it.” He let out a scornful laugh. “He was so fucking pathetic,” he said. “He was so afraid. Kept asking stupid hypothetical questions, needed reassurance that I wouldn’t hurt him.”

 

If I asked you to stand on your head, you’d have to do that wouldn’t you?

You’re not allowed to hurt me, are you? I’m in charge.

That means you have to do everything I say, doesn’t it?

What if I asked you to take off your clothes, you’d have to do that, right?

 

And to each question the soldier had replied in the affirmative. Yes, he had to follow all orders. No he wasn’t allowed to hurt his handler. Yes, Rumlow was his handler because he was the one who’d woken him up and said the trigger words. Badly, of course. None of the Americans had pronounced the words properly. But it didn’t change the reality that Rumlow was in charge. Added to that was all the weird drugs they gave him, because Alexander Pierce hadn’t trusted Karpov in the slightest. With good reason, given that Karpov had held onto the red notebook instead of passing it on with the Winter Soldier. 

 

If I kissed you, you’d have to let me, wouldn’t you? 

You’d have to kiss me back, if I told you to.

 

And the Soldier had paused at that question. Because he was a soldier and his orders were about fighting and killing. Not kissing. And somewhere in the back of his mind there was a half formed thought that made him baulk at the question. But Commander Rumlow had pushed for a response and he had to give it.

Affirmative, but this time the response was slower. 

But Rumlow hadn’t kissed him, not that time. It was probably the Soldier's hesitance that made him think twice about it.

“He was too scared to actually do anything,” Bucky said. “He just had me take off my clothes. Didn’t dare touch me. Didn't dare let me touch him. Just…” he made a pumping motion with his right hand. “You know, jacked himself off, and then I got covered in…”

He pulled a face. “You get the picture. And then the second time…”

“James…” Christina said. 

“The second time,” Bucky repeated, louder now. “He got a bit braver. Pushed it a little further. Made it all about me.”

 

Just think of this as down time. Taking a break, like watching TV. Everyone does it.

You deserve something nice

Remember, you’re not allowed to hurt me

 

“Still didn’t want to risk me touching him. Probably thought I might rip his dick off or something,” Bucky said crudely. “So he just… wanted to see what he could do, what I would let him do to me. So he just felt me up a bit and then chickened out.”

 

I remember those pretty noises you used to make as you came all over my hand

 

Bucky’s breath hitched, and he faltered slightly, before recovering and carrying on.

“And that’s how it went, over the next few years. When the opportunity arose. Not every time I was defrosted, as sometimes he was off doing something else, or there would be other members of the team around, so he couldn’t get me alone. But each time he got a bit bolder, pushed it a bit further. And then a few years later there he was shoving my face down into a pillow while he rammed his…”

And then his voice failed. His brain just stopped working. He couldn’t believe what he’d just gone and done. What he’d said, out loud. To someone. 

He mouthed wordlessly for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t want to hear this. It’s disgusting. I don’t know what I was….what I was thinking.” He looked down at his lap and frowned. At some point, during this tirade, he’d taken his glove off and there it was now, almost completely shredded in his hands. He’d not even noticed.

“James,” Christina said. “I’m not bothered in the slightest by the language you use, or the detail of what you’re telling me. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve heard it all before.”

Bucky fiddled further with the leftover shreds of his glove. 

“I want you to feel able to tell me these things,” she continued. “It means so much to me that you are. And you can use as much or as little detail that you need. And you can continue, if you want.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t want to say anymore.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling, and wished that he’d not said anything. Some things were better left locked up inside. And now they were out there, laid bare. And it opened the door to so much more. All the things he’d thought about yesterday after he returned home, every time he could remember with Rumlow, all the things they’d done together, it all came flooding back. All his shame. All his doubts. 

“Can I ask you something?” he said. 

“Of course,” she said immediately. His eyes flickered up to meet hers, briefly, before he looked away again. He could feel his face heating up. 

“It’s a bit difficult to say,” Bucky said. 

“There is nothing you can say that will shock me,” she said. He believed her. 

“Well… It’s just…” Bucky found he couldn’t get the words out. He tried several times. Every time, some block in his brain prevented him from continuing. He knew what he wanted to ask, but every attempt just resulted in his brain whiting out. A fuzziness. 

“Okay,” Christina said, “let’s pause there a moment. Have some water.” 

He did. 

“I really, really want to help you with this,” Christina said. “But I can’t guess what you’re trying to ask me. I need a little more. I know you struggle with this. You feel a lot of shame and you're scared that I will respond in a way that will increase your shame. I can only assure you that I won’t. And I can see this is important.”

It was important. It was of the utmost importance. Bucky’s brain was screaming at him just say it. Just ask her. For fuck’s sake you’ve said so much already. 

But he was afraid. He was afraid of the response. Even with her assurances he was afraid that he would push her too far. And then he would see her disgust, her condemnation. 

He also lacked the ability to talk so freely about these topics. He didn’t have the vocabulary. He didn't have the experience of being able to talk about relationships and sex. Not like this. Not when it was about sex with men. He still couldn’t label himself as gay, not even in his own head. 

“Give me something to work with,” Christina said. “And then I can help you. I can’t read your mind. Is this still about Rumlow?”

Bucky nodded, and he shredded the glove further in his fingers. There wasn’t much left of it now. Just bits of leather and material and thread. He wished that Christina could read his mind. That would make this so much simpler.

“Every time…” Bucky said. “Well.. not every time. But a lot… some…” 

He knew he had to say more, he’d still not given Christina enough. 

 

I remember those pretty noises you used to make

Act like you hated it all you want

 

“Oh God.” He leaned forward, so he was staring at his lap, his hands framing his forehead, so he could almost pretend Christina wasn’t there. And he tried again. 

“He’d do his thing, right? Whatever it was. Get what he needed. And then he’d make a point of doing it for me too. And he mentioned it yesterday, like it was something nice he did for me, that I wanted it, because I…”

He chanced a quick glance up at her, hoping this was enough. Hoping he’d given her enough for her to just figure it out, and take over. Because he didn’t think he had the ability to spell it out any clearer to her. Because it was too horrendous, too awful. 

“You are telling me,” Christina said, very slowly and very carefully, “that there were several times, many times, after Rumlow had climaxed, finished, that he would make sure you did too?”

Something exploded inside Bucky’s head. All he could manage in response was a breathless, tiny croak.

He remembered a time, hard to place when exactly it happened. A long time after Algeria, but still many years before Project Insight. Rumlow had taken his time. Spoken softly. Asked the Winter Soldier what he liked. He hadn’t answered, of course, because he didn’t know. 

“I take care of you, don’t I?” Rumlow had said, after it was done. “No one else will.”  He sounded kind, like he meant it. And that’s what made it so much worse.

“I think it’s important,” Christina said, “for me to use the appropriate language. If I speak in euphemisms and beat around the bush, it will only increase your feelings of shame. That this is something dirty that shouldn’t be said out loud. And I want to help you to normalise using this language too.”

Christina’s calmness and forthrightness had the effect of helping Bucky to get his brain back under control. She wasn’t freaking out. She wasn’t disgusted. Bucky never really thought she would be, but even so, it was reassuring to see how calm she was. How unshocked she was. Like this was just any other normal conversation. 

Bucky finally managed to speak. “When I saw him yesterday, he made a big deal out of it… about how me…” he made a gesture with his hand to Christina, inviting her to fill in the gap. 

“Finishing?” she guessed.

Bucky managed to stop his brain from whiting out that time. But it was still horrible to hear, all the same. He closed his eyes and forced himself to carry on. “Yes, that,” he said. “That it meant I liked it.  That I wanted it to happen. But that’s not true, is it?” His voice was desperate now, and he opened his eyes and stared at her imploringly, because he needed her to confirm this. “Because last time we talked about him, you said that just because I might have… had a physical… doesn't mean I wanted it, right?”

“That’s correct,” Christina said. “I’m glad that you heard that. I didn’t think you were listening at the time.”

He managed a small smile. “I usually listen,” he said, “even if it doesn't seem like it.”

“You’re absolutely right,” she continued in response to his question. “It’s an autonomous bodily response. To get technical, it’s your parasympathetic nervous system responding to physical sensation. It does not mean desire. It does not mean consent. It does not make the act itself any less unwanted. It doesn’t make it any less an act of coercive control or rape.”

Bucky swallowed at that word. He still hated to think of it in association with himself. Still couldn’t push aside the feeling of powerlessness and weakness that it evoked in him.

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky said. “He tried to convince me otherwise, but I didn’t believe him. And he would have known, wouldn’t he? Yesterday he was going on at me about how much I wanted it. He’d have known, even back then, that that was all shit. He was just doing that thing you told me about, that Fennhoff did, making you believe something that isn’t true. Making you question yourself.”

“I cannot express strongly enough,” Christina said, “that when Brock Rumlow uses your automatic body responses as proof that what he did was okay, that that’s wrong. You didn’t have the ability to tell him what you wanted. And he knows that. He knew it then too. Why else would he have spent so much time to make sure you wouldn’t lash out at him? Because he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he was asking you to do something you might respond badly to. And he chose to do it anyway.”

“I know that,” Bucky said. “I know he was full of shit, the lying bastard. Pretending that what he did was an act of care. He made it seem like… like he was being kind. Like what he was doing was some kind of favour. And I should be grateful.”

“That’s called grooming,” Christina said. “It blurs the lines, creates confusion. That's why you feel so conflicted about it. That's why you have a hard time accepting it for what it really was.”

 

I know there were others before me. You think they'd have shown you the same consideration?

Because I care

 

“He never cared about me,” Bucky muttered darkly. “None of them did. Not a single one.”

His thoughts turned then to Rostov. A name carelessly shouted out by Rumlow in a last ditch attempt to maintain some power over Bucky. Just a name. Just another person who had treated him like shit, probably.

He’d thought a lot about Rostov overnight, and in the morning as he’d made his way to therapy. More memories of the man had followed once he’d made the connection between Rostov and General Markarov. And none of them were good. Rostov had been the one to return Bucky to Siberia in 1960. He remembered Fennhoff, Carter and Zola leaning over him while he was chained to the wall in Camp Lehigh, discussing him. Fennhoff mentioning that Rostov was stationed nearby and would deliver the Winter Soldier back to Siberia, back to General Markarov who beat, fucked and zapped the Soldier’s non-compliance out of him.

Rostov had put him in the Chair numerous times. Shoved the mouth guard between his lips, clamping down the arm restraints, telling him to comply. He remembered Rostov standing over him, wielding the red notebook like it was a weapon, reading passages from the book to the General, giving the other man advice on how to control him properly. All the protocols that Fennhoff and Zola had formulated and laid out in the notebook for posterity, so that future generations would know how to respond to any situation. 

He remembered Rostov as an older man. Grey hair, tired eyes, wrinkled. Not old like Yori. Maybe in his 60s. Older than Fennhoff had been during those early Siberia years. In all likelihood Rostov may even have been there during the early Siberia years. That would explain why he was such a source of authority over the protocols and the red notebook. If that was the case, it just made Rostov even worse. On the same level as Fennhoff, Zola and Lukin. 

There were no good memories. Nothing that indicated that Rostov was anything other than just another malicious, cruel bastard just like all the rest. 

So it made no sense why Bucky was still so married to the idea that Rostov might have been different. That there was something more to him. He had no evidence of this. All he had was Rumlow calling him your pal, Rostov and a memory of him telling someone to call him Bucky. It was hardly concrete evidence, and most likely it was an indication of just how frazzled and messed up his brain still was. 

“Do you think it’s possible,” he asked Christina, his mind still on Rostov, “that someone in Hydra could have cared about me? Could have been my… friend… and it would be real?”

There was a look in Christina’s eyes now that he didn’t like. She didn’t usually show much of her emotions, but every now and again something would slip through. Sometimes he thought it might be deliberate, a careful showing of emotion reflecting his own. But this one didn’t seem deliberate. It slipped through the cracks. He could tell because it was just a flash and then she carefully put it away. Sympathy, perhaps. He didn’t like that. Too much like pity.  

“I’m going to be really frank with you,” she said, “as I think this is too important not to be really clear. The people who worked for Hydra abused you over seventy years. There may have been people who weren’t as active in the abuse. There may have been people around who didn’t strap you in the Chair, but they were still there. They were still complicit.”

“What if they also didn’t have a choice?” Bucky asked. “Hydra threatened people. They threatened their families.”

“That’s still a choice,” Christina said. “And they still chose not to say anything. I’m not saying people might not have felt bad about it. I imagine a lot of the people who you crossed paths with felt some discomfort and horror about what they were seeing, but they still did nothing.”

Bucky wasn’t sure he was entirely convinced. 

“You’ve expressed before,” Christina said, “that you have complicated feelings about this. And I understand those feelings, I do. It’s horrible to think that over seventy years there wasn’t anyone who helped you, but I’m afraid that that is the reality of what you experienced over seven decades.”

“You’re right,” Bucky said. “I just want so badly to think that there might have been at least just one person who maybe genuinely cared about me. Rumlow told me about this guy, Rostov. Said he was my friend. I should know better than to listen to Rumlow, it’s so stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Christina reassured him. “It’s human to believe the best in people, to want to believe the best in people, to believe that people are inherently good. And all you saw for over seventy years was the very worst of human nature. And James, I imagine there were people like Rumlow, maybe this other man too, who made you feel special. Who made you feel cared for. But what they did wasn’t care. They were lying to you. And it’s important that you recognise this.”

It all made so much sense, what she was saying. Of course, it was all true. But it filled him with such a strong sense of sadness, to think about how many people had lied to him. Made him feel special and important. It wasn’t just in a sexual context either. Rostov had clearly engrained deep within him somewhere that they were friends, that he was someone the Winter Soldier could trust. If the Winter Soldier had told Rostov to call him Bucky, this must have been during the early Siberia years, back when Bucky could still remember himself. He could only imagine that Rostov must have done something truly cruel to get that to happen. Using lies and manipulation to get his trust, no doubt. 

Alexander Pierce’s interactions with the Winter Soldier had never been sexual but he too had made the Soldier feel important, needed and special. 

 

You work has been a gift to mankind

 

Those lies had poured out of the man’s mouth like honey, all the while the plan had been for Project Insight to end the Winter Soldier’s life. Project Insight had been the Winter Soldier’s replacement, and Pierce had had him fighting so hard to make it succeed. More lies, and manipulation. Ironically enough, if Alexander Pierce had just told him that he would die at the end of it, he might have tried harder to succeed.

Christina was right, he had to accept this. Had to drop this desperate fool’s errand of trying to convince himself that not everyone in Hydra was a worthless piece of shit. He needed to accept the reality of his life’s experience. His life story was fucked up, and he could wish all he wanted for there to have been something good there, even just one thing, but that wouldn’t change the reality. It was as it was, and he was setting himself up for deep failure and disappointment if he continued to pretend otherwise. 

“Now,” Christina said, drawing his attention away from his thoughts and back onto her. “You said you wanted me to pass on information about Rumlow. I want to be clear on what you are asking me to say.”

Bucky nodded slowly. He felt strangely calm now. Clear headed. Resolved. He knew exactly what he wanted Christina to pass on.

“I want you to tell them about Rumlow’s role as my handler.” His voice didn’t waver. “I want you to tell them that he gave me orders, he sent me to kill people. He ordered me to get into the Chair, where he would give instructions to the techs to wipe my memory. Frequently. Protocol dictates some kind of memory erasure every 72 hours. Ideally the Chair, but if not possible, there were pills and drugs. He gave those to me too.”

He watched Christina opposite him, writing at lightning speed in her notebook, trying to keep up. He waited for her to catch up.

“And I also want you to tell them that he raped me.” The word ‘raped’ came out before he gave himself time to think about it. And he didn’t flinch. He didn’t hesitate. “Many times, I can’t remember all of them. Tell them that.” 

More unwelcome memories flashed through his mind. His back against the wall, Rumlow’s breath in his ear, the sting of restraints. Rumlow’s quiet plea to him to not fight back. Rumlow’s hesitance. His excitement. The sickening rush of arousal that always came without warning. 

He didn’t want to remember these things anymore. But he’d gone to see Rumlow. He was the one to open the floodgates. He could see it now. He could see what Christina meant when she said this was harmful.

He suddenly realised how exhausted he was. Drained. Like he’d just run a hundred miles. 

Christina’s pen stilled and she looked up at him. His eyes met hers, and he felt the beginnings of a flush starting to emerge from the back of his neck, but he maintained eye contact.

“Thank you,” she said, “for trusting me with this. I know how hard it is for you to say these things out loud, and I want you to hear that.”

Bucky felt the flush spread further, and continued to pick at the now completely shredded bits of glove in his lap. 

“You’ve come so far,” she continued and Bucky saw her eyes flicker down to the bits of glove in his lap as she spoke. “A few months ago you'd have never managed this conversation. It's real progress.”

Bucky was sure his face was flaming red now. He coughed. “Yes, well,” he muttered. “Didn't rip this thing to shreds for nothing.” 

“There's something else,” he muttered. “I wasn't completely honest with you earlier when I said meeting him didn't really affect me. I didn't freak out or anything,” he hastened to assure her. “I'd have phoned you if it got really bad. But I had thoughts…”

He fiddled with the leftover bits of fabric and leather in his lap, letting them fall through his fingers. “It made me sick,” he admitted. “And I felt so dirty. It's brought back a lot of memories but… but I do feel better now though, a bit, now I've talked about it.”

“And now you’ve said it,” Christina said, “do you still want me to pass this on? I don’t have to.”

Bucky nodded. He’d never felt more certain of anything in his life. 

“And what if they want to interview you about these things?” she asked, gently. “They may bring Rumlow in to ask him questions. They might want more from you too.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. He shook his head. “I don’t think I can do that. But I still want it to be known. On the record. Then he has no power over me anymore. They can decide what to do about it, if anything. If they can.”

Christina nodded, and made another note. “And what about this other man you mentioned? Rostov? I don't think he was on your list. You want me to include anything about him?”

“No,” Bucky said. “What’s the point? He was old in the 60s, he’s dead now. And I don’t know what he did or didn’t do. All I have of him is a name and a few random flashes of memories that make no sense.” 

He shook his head, and shrugged. “What’s the point in seeking justice from ghosts?”

Notes:

I can't believe I've posted three chapters, three weeks in a row! Finishing the flag smasher story line and being able to move on from that clearly gave me a boost. And also watching Thunderbolts three times has reawakened my Bucky hyper-fixation. Seriously, I can't stop thinking about the man. It's like 2021 all over again. I can't guarantee I will keep up with weekly updates as I want to try not to lose my job! But I've certainly reached a part of the story that I am more excited about, for sure.

Chapter 56: My Life Story: Part Three

Notes:

As with the last two chapters, this chapter also contains sexual references, not as detailed as in the previous two chapters.

My Life Story: Part Three

 

It wasn’t until Bucky returned to his apartment that the reality of what he had disclosed to Christina really hit him. Had he really said all those things out loud to her? And with so much detail. He kicked off his boots and threw himself down on the sofa and stared glumly at his reflection in the blank television screen. His entire conversation with Christina replayed over and over in his head. Every single word. And it was excruciating. 

She told him it might be like this. At the end of the therapy session she spent a good 15 minutes going over what she called ‘grounding strategies’. 

“You might find yourself entering into a sort of shame spiral,” she said. “Second guessing yourself, obsessing over what you’ve said to me. You might be worried that you said too much. It’s shame trying to creep back in. I want you to hear that you’ve done nothing wrong. You've said nothing wrong. You’ve told me your story and that took a great deal of bravery. I want you to try to remember that if your thoughts go to a dark place later.”

So he tried to focus on what Christina said. Tried to push aside his vivid and lurid description of Rumlow jacking himself off, and replace it instead with Christina’s calm affirming words. 

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he told his reflection. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

His brain was clearly not his friend today, because even as he said it, more flashes of Rumlow played across his mind. Rumlow whispering in his ear, telling him to obey. Rumlow ordering him to strip, ordering the Winter Soldier to get down on his knees while Rumlow unzipped himself. And then heat, pressure and humiliation. The choking that made his eyes sting. The way he had to stay still and let it happen.

He could still taste the shame. 

Bucky’s breath caught as even more memories flashed across his mind. He stood abruptly and went over to the sink and splashed cold water over his face. Why now? He wondered. He’d barely thought about Rumlow at all over the last year. Even his previous visit hadn’t had this kind of impact on him. Why was it all so much worse all of a sudden? He attempted some breathing exercises. Deep breath in through the nose, hold, and then let the breath out slowly through the mouth. He repeated this several times. The faucet was still running. He stared at it for several minutes before he noticed, and then turned it off. 

“You might feel a bit off later,” Christina had said earlier. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong, it’s just your brain trying to process everything. It’s not failure, or weakness.”

He turned the TV on. Not the news, not right now. He needed something with a bit more brightness, and colour. He turned the channel to a kids’ cartoon and stared at it blankly. 

Bucky had been in therapy long enough by now to recognise when he was stuck in a negative thought spiral. It was one thing however to recognise it, another thing entirely to break out of it. 

And all he could think about right now, stuck on repeat in his head, was how weak he was. Christina could call him brave until the cows came home and he wouldn’t believe it. He remembered Sam saying

You're the strongest person I know

But he wasn’t ever strong enough. Not physically. Not mentally. And it all went back to those early years in Siberia, with Fennhoff breaking apart his mind piece by piece until there was nothing left of him. 

What was the phrase he said once to Christina to describe himself?

Used to being used

That was it exactly. That was the story of his life. Even before the Winter Soldier, before Siberia. He’d allowed himself to be controlled and used time and time again. Rumlow was just one in a long line of many who’d had control over him. Who’d made him do things he would never have done by choice. 

Can you imagine Steve letting something like this happen to him?

That was something else he’d said to Christina. Look at me, I’m so strong. Rape doesn’t happen to people like me.

But it did happen. 

“Stop this,” he muttered to himself. He turned the sound up loud on the television so that bright theme music filled his apartment. 

It wasn’t my choice!

He needed a cigarette. He stood up and fumbled around the kitchen drawers before he located a half empty packet. He’d need to buy some more. He didn’t smoke as much anymore, but there were times when it was a necessity. It may not be the healthiest way to deal with negative thoughts but harmless in comparison to past maladaptive coping strategies he’d fallen into in the past. He’d take smoking over hacking his arm to bits with a knife. 

The familiar act of putting the cigarette between his lips, lighting it, and inhaling was soothing, and it released a great deal of the pressure and stress that had been building up within him ever since he’d left therapy. 

Christina had suggested more appropriate coping strategies such as writing in his notebook, listening to music, going for a walk, having a hot drink. And here he was watching cartoons with the volume all the way up like a lunatic, and chain smoking in a desperate attempt to keep his brain quiet. 

The cartoon was too loud, too bright and too absurd. Some squeaky voiced pigeon screaming about breadcrumbs while the world continued to crumble inside Bucky’s head. He stared at the screen blankly. 

Percy Pigeon finds a crumb on the windowsill. But wait! It's a trap laid by Lieutenant Butterbean! 

“Oh crumbs!” said Percy.

Bucky turned off the television. He needed to get out for a bit. He couldn’t spend the rest of the day stagnating on the couch with cartoons and cigarettes. He needed a change of scenery. 

He changed into his running clothes, long sleeves of course,  and pulled on a spare pair of gloves. He put on a cap and dark glasses, just in case he might get recognised after being on TV last week. He didn’t really feel like running, but it was something to do. Something to get him out of the apartment and shut his brain up for a bit.

Bucky ran without a destination in mind. He set himself a steady pace, not too fast to draw attention, but fast enough that he had to stay alert, so that he didn’t bump into anyone. He focused on the steady rhythm of his feet on the pavement. There was so much noise around him. Kids shouting, the blaring of horns, people blasting music from their phones. But he welcomed the noise, because it helped drown out the thoughts. 

He continued running, paying no attention to the passage of time. He ran so far that his legs were starting to ache, and then he pushed himself even further. 

It was hours before he returned home. Sweaty and out of breath, but feeling triumphant. He rewarded himself with a long, hot shower. Letting the warm water run over him until the mirror fogged up. 

No more thoughts of Rumlow. No more thoughts of what he’d said to Christina. He’d gone for a run. That was something positive. He grabbed his notebook and turned to the page where he had already written today’s date as well as what he’d eaten for breakfast: toast. It was usually toast. At least he stopped having it plain now. 

He wrote down that he’d gone for a run. Two good things he’d done today. He could add to that, he thought, by making himself something else to eat. It was early evening now. He found some eggs and used the microwave to make a version of scrambled eggs that he just knew would make his mother shudder with horror if she were alive to see this. He forced down his rubbery, tasteless and overcooked eggs and was just about to make a note of this in the notebook when his phone pinged. 

It was Sam asking if Bucky wanted to meet next Tuesday for lunch in the city. 

I’ll be in New York on Tuesday and Joaquin said there’s this place that does the best calzones. Or just grab a drink.

Bucky felt a wave of disappointment crossed with excitement. Of course he wanted to see Sam. He always wanted to see Sam. But he’d hoped their next meeting would be something more substantial. In private, so they could talk. They had a lot they needed to talk about.

It was selfish to expect that Sam could just abandon his obligations, and his dreams, in order to assuage Bucky’s neediness. And also, Bucky reminded himself, it hadn’t even been a week since they’d last seen each other. Just five days in fact (not that Bucky was counting).  It wasn’t like they’d gone weeks and months without seeing each other, like it had been before everything kicked off with the Flag Smashers. It was just that they’d spent so much time together over the last few weeks that it felt so strange now to be apart even if it had only been a few days. So he tempered his disappointment. Sam was busy. Unlike Bucky, whose small world right now consisted only of Sam and therapy, Sam had a life outside of Bucky, and he had a lot going on right now. 

Sam had a future. Bucky had therapy. 

Maybe Christina was right and he should branch out a bit.

Bucky wouldn’t say no to even spending just five minutes with Sam. He could be patient. 

He sent a message back saying he’d be there. Just tell me the time

And then he added that to his notebook as well.

Four positive things. Not bad, considering how his day had started. He often didn’t achieve even that much. He felt a small boost just re-reading it. It might seem small. And in the past he’d hated filling out his notebook. Hated how little there was to feel good about. But Christina had helped him to understand, over many months, that there was victory in the small things. That some days even just achieving one thing could be a major victory. And today he had achieved four things. 

And maybe he could add a fifth, he realised, making his way through into the bedroom. After speaking to Sam last Friday he’d ordered a mattress and bedding. The mattress was on the bed, but he’d not yet unpacked the bedding. It was all there in a pile in the corner of the room. 

It would be an achievement, he thought, to not only make the bed up but to actually sleep in it. He could write it in his notebook and then tell Christina about it in therapy the day after tomorrow. A sign of progress. Proof that he was getting better. 

He quickly made the bed up. It was too early to attempt to sleep just yet. Instead he went back through to the other room and busied himself by reorganising his books on the shelves. And then he watched the news to see if there was anything about Sam. Nothing new. Nothing going on that was particularly interesting or relevant. He took his medication, and then made a note of that in his notebook too. 

It was late now. Almost pushing midnight. Normally, Bucky would settle himself down on the couch now with a blanket and try to sleep. He was tempted to do just that, but he reminded himself of his determination to sleep on the bed tonight. He tried to channel how good it would feel to be able to tell Christina in his next therapy session that he’d slept on the bed. He owed it to himself to try.

And he did try. After two hours of tossing and turning he gave up. It just didn’t feel right. He’d bought a firm mattress, but it just felt too soft in a bad way. He liked to feel something more solid underneath, something grounding and supportive. And the mattress felt like it might just give way beneath him. 

The bed was too big. He was so used to sleeping all bunched up, his arms and legs contorted in a weird yet oddly comfortable way on the couch. The lighting was wrong too.There was a street light positioned right outside his bedroom window. Bright yellow light seeped in from the outside through the rather ineffective Venetian blind that had been in the apartment when he'd first moved in. And he wasn’t used to sleeping without background noise from the television, and the absence of the flickering light from the television was another factor that just made sleeping in the bed feel so wrong. 

He stared up at the ceiling, illuminated by the street light outside. His mind, now unoccupied and bored, started to wander. Drifting back to Rumlow. 

Another bed. Another ceiling. Another time. Rumlow’s voice, low and authoritative. ‘Don’t make this awkward like you usually do. Just lie still.” The mattress dipping with Rumlow’s weight. No force. Rumlow never needed to force him. He remembered staring up at the ceiling afterwards, while Rumlow got dressed. Rumlow issuing him an instruction to ‘go clean yourself up’. Rumlow pushing a pill into his hand, telling him to take it. “So you don’t go tattling on me.”

He sat up suddenly. This wasn’t going to work. Not tonight. 

And that was when he returned to the couch, put the TV back on and told himself that he would try again tomorrow. One of Christina's mantras: We try again. 

Bucky didn’t have any dreams or nightmares that night. But he woke up with a thought. It was probably because he’d fallen asleep thinking of Rumlow and the pills, but he woke in the morning with a question in his mind of why exactly was Rumlow so afraid that people would find out what he was doing? No-one had ever cared before, that he could remember. Maybe Rumlow had been embarrassed. Ashamed. The Russians never were. 

He lay there dozing, in that halfway state of being not quite asleep but also not quite awake at the same time, and his mind wandered. Thinking about Rumlow. Thinking about Rostov. And all the others. And all these thoughts whirled round and round inside his head until something new came to him. A sudden jolt of clarity. He sat up abruptly, almost falling off the couch as his mind raced to understand the implications of what it had just remembered.

“This might seem a little unusual to you,” the man said. The Soldier knew this man’s name was Kozlov. He didn’t remember it. It was how one of the technicians had addressed him when he’d entered the room. “I’m still learning the protocols.”

“Although, maybe it doesn’t,” Kozlov continued. His eyes fixed on the Soldier’s face with a piercing and curious stare. “How much carries over, I wonder? But they said you were restless this time, so I thought an explanation might be in order.” Kozlov's tone was casual, conversational. Almost friendly. It made the Soldier feel uneasy. 

Restless didn’t seem like an appropriate description, the Soldier thought, to ever be used to describe him. But he didn’t contradict the man, who was clearly someone in authority. The Soldier wasn’t sure what would count as unusual behaviour. 

“I know Rostov is usually here during this part of the… proceedings.” The man gestured towards the Chair which the Soldier was still seated in. “He’s not here anymore. I had to send him away. He got too attached.”

Kozlov knelt down in front of the Soldier so they were level with each other. Kozlov looked the Soldier over, from top to toe, a look of curiosity on his face. “I don’t understand it, myself,” Kozlov said, his tone one of mild wonderment. “If men want to risk their lives, their limbs and their dicks, that's their prerogative. As long as it doesn’t impact your performance. And it’s tough, being so isolated with no women around. That, I understand.” He shrugged. “It’s not my taste. But Rostov?”

Kozlov stood up suddenly and reached out for some documents that one of the technicians was holding out to him. The Soldier thought those must be mission briefs. “Rostov took it too far.” Kozlov leafed through the pages. “And it caused too many issues. That mess in China. Those witnesses in France. Ivanov wanted to shoot him, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. All those years of loyal service… seemed disrespectful.”

He gave a small shrug, as though discussing a minor staffing issue.

“He’s gone now. And so you and I… well, we’re stuck with each other for the time being. Until we find an appropriate replacement.”

Kozlov then addressed one of the technicians. “Is he prepped?” 

A nod. 

“Good,” Kozlov said. “Maybe now Rostov’s no longer here to make a mess of things you’ll stop being so… dysfunctional.” 

He waved a hand in front of the Soldier’s face. No reaction. Not even a blink.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” Kozlov asked. He studied the Soldier’s face for a moment longer, as if hoping to see something. A flicker of memory. A sign of recognition. “Nothing there at all.” Kozlov spat on the ground. “If Rostov knew how little you cared he might not have bothered.”

Bucky shot off the couch and moments later was rifling once again through his notebooks. Trying to find any mention of Kozlov’s name, any link between him and Rostov. He couldn’t find anything. 

He closed his eyes tight tight and tried desperately to force the whirling confused mess in his mind to settle and start making sense. Kozlov was in charge in the 70s, alongside Ivanov. In fact… The incident in China, that was in 1975, he remembered. It was one of the things that Rumlow had desperately thrown out at him the other day. And the incident in France with the witnesses, that had to be Elizabeth Dugan. So this memory would have to be from 1979 or later. But that didn’t make sense because… because…

Rostov was old in the 60s, Bucky thought.  It didn't make sense that he was still active almost 20 years later. 

He let out a strangled noise of frustration at how difficult this was. He had all these pieces but his mind was too fractured to be able to piece them together properly so that they made sense.

It couldn’t be the same person, he decided. His mind had to be mixing up two different men. Maybe with the same name, if it was a code name. Hardly anyone in Hydra used their real names, only the higher ups. 

Was that it? It felt plausible, certainly. Because on one hand he was remembering Rostov as a man who was just as horrible as all the rest, and on the other hand…

I had to send him away. He got too attached

If Rostov knew how little you cared, he might not have bothered

That felt like proof enough, proof enough that this Rostov was different. He got sent away because he got too attached. That meant something. It meant that maybe, just maybe, Bucky wasn’t chasing a pipedream. That maybe there had been at least one person throughout the seventy years of abuse and silence and control, who genuinely cared about him.  

That idiot Rostov wiped his memory

It was either Kozlov or Ivanov who’d said that. While they were questioning the Winter Soldier in the Chair about why he’d left the children alive. Did Rostov have something to do with that? Did he wipe it from the Winter Soldier’s memory before he was questioned about it? And why?

He stood up, leaving his notebooks on the floor, his eyes resting on the box squirreled away behind the television. Where he’d put Elizabeth Dugan’s letter. Moments later he was digging through the box, searching. He found it quickly and drew it out, holding it at arm’s length like it was a bomb about to explode. He stared at his name on the envelope. Handwritten. He swallowed. 

Suddenly he felt very afraid. 

What good would it do to read the letter? he thought. Elizabeth wouldn’t know anything about Rostov. It wouldn’t answer any of these questions. Just something else to obsess over. More guilt. More horror. More shame. 

He couldn’t bear it.  He shoved the letter back in the box and pushed the box back behind the television. He wasn’t going to find what he was looking for in Elizabeth Dugan’s letter, but he wasn't about to give up. 

And then he froze as an idea began to form in his mind, and he was reaching for his phone before he'd even spared a thought about whether this was a good idea.

“What’s up, James?” Christina’s voice was cautious and guarded. Like she was expecting bad news. Which, Bucky realised a little belatedly, she probably was. He never rang her unless there was some disaster happening.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he hastened to reassure her. “I just have a request to make.”

His heart was pounding so fast in his chest, excitement, anticipation, because he knew this was the way to get the answers he was seeking, he just had to get her to agree. 

“Are you at home?” she asked. 

Bucky felt a pang of annoyance. “Yes, I’m at home. But I told you there’s nothing wrong. I’m fine.”

“It’s 6am,” she pointed out. 

Bucky moved the phone away from his ear so he could see the time. He cringed. Maybe he should have waited. This wasn’t exactly helping him to reinforce his point that he was fine and there was nothing to worry about. But he was on the phone now and talking to her, so he might as well continue. 

“I just had a thought.” He paced around the room as he spoke, his mind racing to work out the best way of putting his request to her. He really should have taken some time to think about this first. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, he cursed his spontaneity. His impulsivity. His tendency to rush head first into situations, without thinking about them, and then regretting his actions afterwards.

“Can you get me clearance to see Zemo?” he asked.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. He had to look at the screen again to check that she was still there. 

“Zemo. Who is in The Raft,” she confirmed. Her voice remained neutral but he could feel the tension behind it. “Can you tell me why?”

Of course she would want to know why. 

“I just want to talk to him,” he replied. “Can you just ask?” He was hoping to bypass any further questions, although he wasn’t optimistic about his chances. He didn’t realistically think she would agree without further information.

“You know I can't do that without knowing what this is really about.” Exactly what he thought she’d say. 

Bucky spun round in a circle as he considered how to respond. It had to be the truth. He’d not given himself enough time to think of anything else. He was already regretting this. 

He realised he’d been quiet for too long. 

“James,” Christina prompted him.

“Look.” Bucky tried to keep his voice level and steady, so he didn’t come across as irrational or obsessive. “Zemo knows things about me. About things that happened. About people who I… who I knew.”

His conversation with Zemo at the Sokovian memorial rose into his mind, unbidden. 

You formed attachments to people in Hydra, did you know that?

I found some papers, dating back decades, all about you. Like diary entries by different handlers, passed down from one to the other.

If anyone could give him answers, it would be Zemo. He knew things. He had access to documentation no-one else ever had. All those papers he’d uncovered after killing Karpov.

Christina was silent again. And then: “Is this about what we discussed yesterday? Is this about Rostov?”

Bucky swallowed. Christina sounded almost accusatory. 

“Christina, help me out here. I just want some answers… that’s all. And Zemo will have them. I just need to talk to him. Please.”

“Let’s say you see Zemo,” she said. “Then what?”

Bucky sat down heavily on the sofa. This didn’t sound promising at all. 

“Let’s say you see Zemo. Let’s say you get the answers you think you need. What do you expect to feel? And if you don’t get those answers, then what?”

Bucky exhaled, and sank further into the couch. He didn't have an answer.

“This is a pattern, James. You get an idea, a fixation, and it feels urgent. And then you chase it, no matter the cost. We’ve talked about this. It’s not about the answer, not really. It’s the chase. And every time, you end up hurt. Not because you’re wrong to ask questions, but because you’re asking them from a place of pain.”

Bucky wanted to argue, to contradict her, to prove her wrong. But there was nothing he could say, because she was of course absolutely right. 

“I understand.” Her voice was softer now, gentle. And it made him feel even worse. “I understand the need for answers. I do. So much of your life experience is shrouded in mystery. And so much of it will remain so. And it’s important to accept that.”

Bucky stared blankly at the television screen, just letting Christina's voice wash over him. He felt kind of flat, now. He'd gone from excitement, to nerves, to anger, and now he just felt defeated. He was so fed up of just having to accept things, and not being able to do anything about them.

He thought of Steve who’d died before Bucky had even begun to regain his pre Hydra memories. There was so much that Bucky wished they could have talked about but now never would. He had to accept that. He had to accept the loss of his family and friends, knowing that they were all dead and he would never see them again. He had to accept that his life story had just been one hell after another, one fight after another, for over seventy years. There was so much that he just had to sit back and passively accept. And he did so. Because you can’t change the past. You can’t bring the dead back to life.

“And in seeking these answers,” Christina continued, “you run the risk of learning things that result in causing you more distress and harm. This has happened before.”

She was right. He hated thinking it. But this was exactly what had happened when he’d got a bee in his bonnet about what had happened in 1960. And he’d chased down answers in much the same way. And the result was just more pain. More hurt. More feelings of loss and betrayal. Along with the wish that he’d never sought this out to begin with. How many times had he promised to Christina, or to himself, that he wasn’t going to do this anymore. That he’d learned his lesson. 

“Forget it,” he mumbled down the phone. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

He was about to hang up, but she quickly stopped him by sharply saying his name.

“James! I have to be very clear now. You’re not to go off on your own and attempt to see Zemo.”

“Of course I won’t do that,” he said.

“I’m very serious,” she said. “I know how this works for you. And if you attempt…”

“I’m not going to try to break into the Raft to see Zemo,” Bucky snapped down the phone. “I could. But I won’t. I’m not that stupid, okay? I was trying to do this properly. That’s why I rang you. And you said no. And that’s it. I get it.”

“I can come over,” she suggested. “Or you can come to the office and we can talk about this.”

It wasn’t even a therapy day. 

“No,” Bucky said quickly. “It’s fine. It was just a thought. It doesn't matter. And I’m fine.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Yes.” He barely stopped himself from shouting it. The last thing he wanted was to talk to her any more about this. He already felt embarrassed and let down. He also didn’t want her to feel that she had to send anyone over to ‘keep an eye on him’. 

“Yes. I’m fine. Really fine. I did lots of good things yesterday. I ate. I went for a run. I've been taking my meds. I even slept in my bed. Well, I gave up. But I tried. And I’ll try again tonight too. And I’ll see you tomorrow at 10am, like always. I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”

“Okay, James,” she said.

Bucky closed his eyes, feeling another pang of annoyance. How many times did she have to say his damn name in one conversation? 

“Thank you for calling me. I’m glad that you reached out to me about this, rather than keeping it in. That’s really positive, even though it may not feel that way, right now.”

Goddamnit, her kindness was starting to make him feel emotional. If she kept it up he was in danger of crying.

“I know you’re disappointed,” she continued, “because I’m not saying what you want to hear. But it’s important I don’t just comfort you. I have to challenge you, especially when I recognise the same spiral pulling you back in.”

He tuned out the rest. Just sat numbly, his vision blurring in a haze of unshed tears while she finished. He was able to force out a quiet “see you tomorrow.” And then the conversation was over. And he regretted ever starting it.

He felt strange. His heart felt heavy and yet oddly hollow at the same time. And there was a pressure, like a storm raging in his chest. A panic. But not the manic, lashing out kind of panic. But more of a frozen, numb kind of panic. He felt like he’d fucked up in a massive way. Even though Christina hadn’t said as much, he knew that this conversation was going to be used against him. She'd keep it, as a mental note, as evidence that he still had so far to go. 

He made himself a promise. Next time he had an idea he would stop and think about it first. He had little confidence that he would keep the promise. He’d made this promise before. 

Despite Christina's obvious disapproval and warnings, he was still reluctant to drop this search for answers. Objectively, he knew Christina was absolutely correct, and he should listen to her. But there was also this deep burning need within him, not dissimilar to the need he’d felt months ago when he’d been fixated on the mystery of what had happened in 1960. This felt important. No, not important. This felt essential. And he wasn’t willing to let it drop. 

He would just have to think of other ways to find the information he needed.  

Notes:

Just wanted to give a thank you to everyone reading my story. Got a massive boost this last week. I think people are watching Thunderbolts and then coming straight to AO3! Seriously not only did I reach over 1000 kudos this week (thank you very much), but the last update got me 47 kudos which is the most I ever got after an update.

Anyway - to all the readers, whether you comment or not, or leave kudos or not, I am very grateful to every single one of you for giving my story a chance.

Chapter 57: My Life Story: Part Four

Notes:

Umm... I have another content warning for this chapter. There's a dream sequence at the very beginning which features fairly descriptive non consensual and dubiously consensual sexual acts. It's all in service of the plot, but it's also possible I got a little carried away... As always please let me know if it needs toning down a little and I'll consider it.

My Life Story: Part Four

There was someone in bed with him.

He didn’t remember anyone joining him, but even with his eyes still closed, the presence of someone else was unmistakable. Warm breath, a hand touching his waist, the press of lips against his neck.

“Don’t open your eyes,” a voice whispered. 

Bucky’s heart felt like it might explode in his chest. 

“Sam?” he asked cautiously. “Is that you?” He tried to open his eyes but it was like they were glued shut. The bed was so soft it felt like he was sinking into the darkness.

“Don’t open your eyes,” the man, for it was definitely a man, repeated. The voice was soft and gentle and very familiar. It was definitely Sam. Bucky allowed himself to relax. 

Fingers softly ran over his cheek and then made their way down, stroking his neck, his chest before reaching the hem of his shirt which was slowly lifted. Kisses again, on his neck, his shoulder, his chest. A hand ran over his chest and made its way lower and lower…

Bucky inhaled sharply, recoiled, and sat up with with a jolt.

“Wait.” He held out his hands, trying to keep Sam at bay, before finally forcing his eyes to open.

It was Sam. But this knowledge didn’t bring any relief. It didn’t quell the sense of terror that was building up from deep within. 

“I don’t know about this. Maybe we should stop.”

He didn’t know where he was. Nothing seemed to exist around them. It was just him and Sam, in bed. But how they got here, Bucky didn’t know. Sam was shirtless. The rest of him was covered by the blanket but Bucky didn’t dare look to see if he was wearing anything underneath.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “It’s just me. You’re safe.”

For a moment Bucky believed him, or maybe he just wanted to believe him. But his anxiety remained as something just didn’t feel right. 

But before Bucky could make sense of these thoughts, before Bucky could even tell Sam to just hold on a second, Sam was kissing him. On the mouth. Properly. Deeply. Long, heated and passionate kisses. 

One of Sam’s steady hands cupped Bucky’s face and the other continued to work its way down his body, still exploring. 

Bucky froze, his arms limp and useless by his sides. He didn’t kiss back. His mind was still scrambling to catch up, to make sense of what was happening. And Sam continued the kiss, insistent and hungrily, opening Bucky’s lips with his tongue. Demanding. 

Bucky forced himself to relax, thinking this is Sam. It’s safe. I want this. 

A war raged inside his head. Part of him desperate for Sam to stop. Another part urging him to respond, to just enjoy himself. To stop being so pathetic.

This is what you do when you love someone.

He closed his eyes as Sam’s hand slipped inside his boxers and then…

A crack of pain across his face. 

Bucky’s eyes shot open and he recoiled once more. Sam was gone. Rumlow was straddling him now, grinning, his hand raised for another blow. 

“I told you not to close your eyes,” Rumlow griped. “Why do you always have to make it so awkward?”

Bucky tried to reply, but no words came. He tried to roll away, to shift Rumlow from being on top of him, but he was frozen in place. Trapped and powerless.

Rumlow’s hand disappeared beneath the covers and Bucky could see it frantically moving, the rhythm getting faster and faster. Rumlow’s body jerking in time, his breath catching, his face twisted and contorted in a combination of pain and ecstasy.

It was grotesque. Bucky felt bile rising in his throat and turned his face away so he couldn’t see anymore, but he could still hear Rumlow’s gasps, moans.

And then silence. And when he looked back, Rumlow was gone. 

Someone else was there now. Someone he didn’t know. An older man, wrinkled with greying hair, and tired eyes. Eyes that had seen too much.

“Я хотел для тебя лучшего, чем это”

It took a while for Bucky’s addled brain to make sense of the Russian.

I wanted better for you than this

The man’s hand cupped his cheek.

Bucky suddenly guessed who this was.

“Rostov?” he asked. He tried to sit up but the man gently pressed him back down. The mattress dipped as Rostov, for it had to be him, leaned in. Bucky felt the man’s lips press against his cheek before whispering something else into his ear.

“Это не в первый раз. Но в последний.”

This isn’t the first time. But it will be the last.

Bucky felt frozen. “What does that mean?” He didn’t know what language he was speaking. The words just fell out of him. 

But then Rostov was gone too. 

And then everything shifted again. 

This time he was surrounded. So many people. Too many people. Too many hands, lips, eyes. Bodies pressed against him. Was it one person, was it two, three or ten? No idea. He could hear Sam’s calm, steady voice. Rumlow barking instructions, his tone frustrated and harsh. And voices in Russian too. Some kind. Some cruel. 

Someone was kissing him. There were hands running all over him. 

Laughter. Murmurs. Soft words. Insults. Terms of endearment.

Eyes changed colour. Faces blurred together.

The hands never stopped moving, they were all over him now. His chest, his stomach, running over his legs, his thighs. Then a hand on him, down there, between his legs. Touching him. Moving. Evoking a response. 

He didn’t know who was doing what. And to his horror, something stirred. A warm pressure low in his body, against his will, rising before he could stop it. A pressure building.

God, not that. Not now

He tried to shove the people away, to get them off him, but his hands passed through them like they were ghosts. Or maybe he was the ghost. 

“Stop,” he managed to gasp out. “Stop it. Stop. Don’t.”

 

He jolted awake.

 

The world reeled sideways as he fell out of bed, the blanket tangled tight around his legs. He hit the floor with a loud thud, gasping for air.

The room spun around him. It was too dark. He didn’t know where he was. His heart pounded in his chest as his mind conjured up all the worst possible scenarios, still confused. Caught between sleep and waking, still half trapped in the dream. 

He’d been taken. He didn't know where he was. He’d lost time. He was back there. 

Who would come rushing through that door at any moment? 

What had they already done to him? What would they do next?

And then his brain finally caught up. It was the light of the television that he noticed first, a football match playing. And he recalled dragging the TV in here to help him sleep. And then he remembered hanging up the sheet over the window to keep the street light from shining in. That’s why it was so dark. 

And then he remembered that he was in his bedroom, that he’d fallen asleep there on purpose. 

His breathing steadied as he grounded himself. As the memories from the evening before filtered back into his mind and started to make sense. He was at home. He’d fallen asleep in his bedroom. No-one else was here. He was fine. 

Then he pulled himself up on shaky legs and turned the main light on. 

As the light flooded the room Bucky could tell that nothing was different. Everything was just as he had left it when he’d fallen asleep. It was just a nightmare that’s all. Just a very weird, messed up crazy dream. Nothing to worry about. It had just been a while since he’d had a nightmare so it took a little longer to recover from than usual, no problem.

No big deal. 

He leaned down to pick up his blanket and froze.

Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong.

He sank back down to the floor in dismay and horror.

“Oh fuck.” Said quietly, more of a breath than actual words. Disbelieving and stunned.  

This hadn’t been just any dream. All that kissing and touching and his body had responded. And not just in his dream either. His arousal was glaringly, shamefully, obvious.

He closed his eyes shut tight and tried to pretend that this wasn’t happening. That his body hadn’t been turned on by that horrific nightmare. That he wasn’t that fucked up.

But the reality was undeniable.

“Oh no…” he leaned his head against the wall. “No, no, no.”

And then he slapped himself hard, and without any warning. It was an impulse. He did it before his brain even realised he was about to. And then he did it again, this time with the metal arm which hurt even more. Pain exploded across his face. 

“Fuck!” He shouted it this time. “Fuck you, you disgusting piece of crap… I can’t believe this…” 

The shame was suffocating. He launched himself to his feet, still berating himself in between panicked moans of “no, no, fuck, no!”

He headed straight to the bathroom, turned the shower to the coldest setting and threw himself under the freezing stream, without removing his clothes.

He stood there, completely still, for a long time. Just letting the icy cold water pummel him. No more shouting or denial or acts of violence against himself. He just stood there in numb disbelief as the water cascaded down around him. 

“This doesn't mean anything,” he whispered. He tried to remember what Christina said about it being an autonomous body response. Something to do with a pathetic nervous system or something like that. He had a feeling he got the terminology wrong but it didn’t matter. It was the message that was important. 

He closed his eyes. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said, firmer this time. Trying to convince himself. “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. It doesn’t”.

He repeated this again and again, almost like a prayer or a plea. But it didn't make him feel any better.

 

He almost told Christina. He considered it, anyway. And she gave him the opening to do so. She asked him if he’d slept in his bed last night. He’d forgotten that he told her he was attempting to. It was the perfect lead in to telling her about the dream. But when it came to it, he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. 

It was the shame, yes, that contributed to his reluctance. Ever since he’d woken up, every few minutes flashes from the dream would replay in his head, and then the reminder of the state he’d been in upon waking. Then the disgust would return. The horror. The shame. 

While he knew objectively that Christina would not reinforce his shame, he knew her well enough by now to be certain of that, he just couldn’t bring himself to verbalise any of this out loud to her.

But it wasn’t just the shame that made him wary of talking about it to her. He could push through the shame. He’d told her worse things. And she’d probably help him feel less awful and disgusted about it. But it was also the memory of what she’d said to him only yesterday. About chasing obsessions and getting hurt. 

The dream proved Christina right. It was a direct consequence of all his actions that week. He knew it to be true. Visiting Rumlow. His obsession with Rostov. Chasing memories and ghosts. Bringing up all those memories and questions. And it all culminated in that horrific dream. And he didn’t want to admit to Christina that she’d been absolutely right, as usual. That he was headed down a very dangerous path, and here was the proof. He didn’t need to hear it, he already knew it. And even though he knew it was irrational, he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being right.

Bucky also wanted time to work things out for himself. He hadn’t decided yet whether he was willing to abandon his quest for answers. The logical, sensible, Christina inspired part of him said that of course he should. That he was harming himself by continuing. That he would be best off just accepting the reality that there are some things that are best left forgotten. But then the other part of him, that impulsive probably trauma-ruled part of him, categorically disagreed with this view and still pushed him to seek answers. 

And he knew what Christina would say, and he wanted to work through his own thoughts first. 

So when she asked him, “How did you sleep last night? Did you try sleeping in your bed again?” He teetered on the edge of telling her, but then chose not to. Instead he remained silent, as he didn’t know how to answer the question.

On any other day Christina might have guessed that this silence meant something, she would have put two and two together, realised this was about a nightmare, and she would have pushed until he came out and said it all anyway. But Christina’s mind was clearly on the conversation they had yesterday, for she didn’t make that leap. Not today. Thank God.

“Are you annoyed with me for denying your request to see Zemo?” she asked. 

Bucky gratefully latched onto this excuse. He let out a heavy sigh, for effect.

“No,” he said. “I was. Yesterday. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I guess you’re right. It’s not sensible.”

Christina looked suspiciously across at him. 

“I mean it.” Bucky raised up his right hand, palm facing her, as if making a vow. “I’m not planning to do anything stupid. I don’t need to speak to Zemo.”

“But you’re not intending to stop,” Christina said. “You’re trying to find other ways of getting the information you think you need.”

Bucky hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I don’t know what I want to do. It’s been a weird week. Maybe next week will be better. I’m seeing Sam on Tuesday, we’re meeting for lunch.”

Christina responded positively to this, but Bucky felt disheartened. Normally the thought of seeing Sam would perk him up considerably, but he couldn’t shake the memory of Sam in his dream. Sam kissing him. Ignoring his requests to wait. Bucky’s frozen numbness, trying to will himself to respond but not being able to. Sam continuing anyway, ignoring Bucky’s obvious reluctance. And then, even worse, Sam morphing into Brock Rumlow.

It was only a dream. For the thousandth time that morning he told himself that it didn’t mean anything. And yet all thoughts of Sam were now soured. It didn’t make sense. All he’d wanted for a long time now was for Sam to kiss him. He’d just started allowing himself to fantasise about it. Imagining Sam’s lips on his, Sam’s hands running through his hair. He never let the fantasies go too far, he had a bit of a mental block whenever the fantasies reached a certain stage, but they were still enjoyable.

And now the thought of it terrified him. The thought of being alone with Sam terrified him. How could he let that nasty sordid dream poison the one thing he had in his life that was good? It wasn’t fair.

His brain willed him to open his mouth and tell Christina. Just start telling her. It would be so easy. All he would have to do is say I had a dream last night and she would do the rest. She’d take him through it, carefully but insistently, using the words that he couldn’t. Then she’d help him feel better about it. 

But then he’d have to tell her about afterwards, upon waking, how his body had responded. The revulsion. The thought of saying any of that out loud to Christina made his skin crawl. Even if he knew he should, even if he knew it would help him to do so. 

“I think it’s good for you to have other things to focus on,” Christina said. “You don’t have much to keep your mind busy. With that in mind, I have a suggestion for you.”

“What’s that?” Bucky felt wary. He had an inkling where she might be going with this. 

“There’s a group I used to run,” she said. “It’s run by a colleague of mine now, every Sunday. It’s…”

Bucky didn’t let her finish. “I already told you, more than once, that I have no interest in hanging around with a whole load of crazy people and having to share my feelings with them.”

“James!” she said sharply. Bucky didn’t need her to continue, he already felt awful about what he’d said and he regretted it immensely. He was clearly still unsettled from his dream because he knew better. 

But she continued anyway. “I’m not going to let that slide by this time.” Her voice was firm but not harsh. Assured but not shaming. “You use that word so easily to describe yourself and others, and it is not a fair or appropriate word to use. Firstly, no-one is crazy. These are people who, like you, have lived through significant traumas and who need support and intervention to recover. Secondly, you don’t have to talk or share any experiences or feelings unless you choose to do so.”

Bucky stared down at his hands, joined in his lap, and felt very contrite. 

“If you would let me explain, before jumping to a knee jerk response,” she said. “I think it would be good for you to have something else in your life. If not this, then we can talk about other options. I think it would be good for you to meet other people. I am not saying you have to go this weekend. I am asking you to consider it. You don’t have to go. If you go, you don’t have to stay. And if you stay you don’t have to talk. Some people go for weeks, months even, without saying a single word. And that’s okay.”

Bucky twisted his hands together in his lap. He wasn’t convinced. What if he went and people recognised him? But he felt too bad about his ‘crazy people' comment to raise an objection. 

“You don’t have to book in advance, you can just turn up. There’s no register. I can let my colleague, Andrew, know you might be stopping by. No-one will ask anything of you that you’re not willing to give. All I ask is that you consider it. Will you do that?”

Bucky hesitated. Then nodded. He could consider it, for sure. The answer would be no, but he’d consider it for a bit first.

“I can text you the details, if you like,” she offered. 

Bucky nodded again. 

“Is there anything you want to ask me about it?” Christina pushed. “Any thoughts or concerns?”

Bucky shook his head. Christina sighed, clearly realising that Bucky had no intention of giving this a fair shot. But at least she made no further effort to push him into going. The only thing she said was:

“I hope you will consider going. It’s a good group. Andrew's really good at what he does. He won’t let anyone feel pressured or awkward. And I really think it would do you some good. Why don't we talk about it next week? Think about it over the weekend, and let me know if you have any questions.”

Bucky gave another short sharp nod. He could tell she felt disappointed, but she didn’t try to persuade him any further. She knew that pushing him would just end in more resistance. She knew when to stop. 

“I want to ask you something,” Bucky said suddenly. “It’s not about Zemo again,” he said quickly when he saw the look on her face. “I’ve given that up. And it’s not about Rostov either.”

He hesitated, wondering if this was the right time to mention it. It wasn’t something he’d planned, it literally just popped into his mind when Christina mentioned needing other things in his life. Other things to focus on. Because this was something she might approve of given that it was her who’d raised it with him in the first place.

“Can you make arrangements for me to meet Elizabeth Dugan?” he asked.

Christina raised her eyebrows. “Where did this come from? You were very against this only on Monday. What’s changed?”

“Like you said,” Bucky muttered. “I need to have other things to think about.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “If you want to meet Elizabeth it needs to be for the right reasons. Not because you’re trying to avoid other thoughts. Have you read her letter?”

Bucky shook his head. Christina looked so sympathetic and understanding that it made him feel really uncomfortable. 

“I think that’s the first step,” Christina said. “You read the letter, then if you want, we can start a dialogue.”

Bucky felt frustrated. He was so fed up with Christina telling him not to do things. She was the one who told him about this, gave him the letter, and put it in his head in the first place. Why all these barriers now?

“I don’t want to start a dialogue,” Bucky griped, trying to keep his temper under control. “I don’t even know what that means. No, I haven’t read her letter yet. But I can, if I need to. I’ll read it when I get back.”

“Forcing yourself to do this, when you’re not ready, is not good for you. And it’s not good for her either,” Christina said.

“I want to do the right thing,” Bucky said. “And she doesn’t want me to write her a letter. You said this yourself, she wants to arrange a meeting. And I want to do what she wants. That’s the right thing to do.”

“I’m not saying no,” she said gently. “But I want you to pause for a moment and think about why you’re doing this. Meeting Elizabeth isn't something you should do to assuage guilt, or to give you something else to be thinking about. It needs to be about supporting your recovery. It needs to be something positive, for you and for her.”

“It will be positive for me,” Bucky said earnestly, “It’ll be good for me to give her what she’s asking for. It’ll be good for me to be able to answer her questions like I did with Yori. Only this time it’ll be done properly, like you said. Planned. Organised. Done in a safe way.” 

He deliberately used a phrase he was pretty certain would appeal to her. It sounded therapeutic: done in a safe way. She'd probably said that to him herself at some point. 

“I’m not saying it has to be now,” Bucky said. “I get this takes time. I’m just saying I want to work towards it. Can’t you just ask her… just ask her… if she wants me to send her a letter I’ll do that. But if she’d rather meet, can we just work towards that instead? I’ll do it all properly. I’ll follow all the rules. Please.”

Suddenly it felt like he’d never wanted something to happen more in his life. And he had no idea where this had come from as he'd had no intention of asking for this until this very moment. “I want to do this. For me.”

“We can certainly start some preparation work,” Christina agreed. And Bucky’s heart lurched as he felt like this was a victory. “And I can certainly run this by her as well. She needs preparation, as do you.”

“What does that mean?” Bucky asked cautiously.

“Work around how the meeting takes place, where it takes place. Rules. Boundaries. Structure. Agreed topics of conversation. How to manage if someone needs a break. How to manage the aftermath. This isn’t just a meeting. It’s everything that comes before, and comes afterwards as well. There’s a lot to think about, and to prepare for.”

Bucky swallowed. That sounded like a lot of work. “Agreed topics?” he asked. “I don’t want her to be prevented from asking me anything. She needs to say what she wants.”

“That goes for you too,” Christina said. “Elizabeth might have boundaries, there may be things she doesn’t want mentioned. Those boundaries need to be respected. This meeting, if it takes place, is not about punishment, it’s not about causing yourself further harm. It’s supposed to meet the needs of both of you and have potential positive outcomes for both of you. And yes, it will take a while to set up and do the preparation work.”

“How long?” Bucky asked. He hated waiting. Once he got an idea in his head, he liked to do it straight away.

“I can’t answer that,” she said. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On the preparation work. How you engage with it. Whether you are continuing to do this for punishment rather than healing. Your motivations. Hers too. You could pull out at any point. She could either. And I can certainly end things if I don’t think this is being done for the right reasons by either you or Elizabeth.”

Christina sighed. “But I can get the ball rolling, so to speak. We can begin exploring what this might look like. Without any rush. But James, if reading her letter still feels too overwhelming, we need to be realistic about how ready you are for an actual conversation with her.”

“I do better in person,” Bucky said. The look on Christina’s face suggested that this was the wrong thing to say. “I’ll read the letter, okay? But… like, you said… maybe not just yet. I’ll work towards it. As long as we’re working towards something else as well.”

“That’s fair,” Christina said. “And I can reach out to her and start laying down some groundwork. But I won’t make any promises. And James… don’t read that letter if you’re not ready. If it helps, you can bring it to therapy and we can work through it. Or call me, if you read it and need to decompress. Don’t push yourself. If you’re not ready, it can do more harm than good. That goes for reading the letter, and for the meeting as well."

 

When Bucky returned home he once again searched through his box of things I don't know what to do with and pulled out Elizabeth's letter. He didn’t read it. Just put it on the shelf with his books. More accessible, visible and easier to reach. Maybe if he saw it often enough it would make the idea of reading it feel less like an impossibility.

He sat down on the couch and then remembered that he’d moved the TV into his bedroom last night. Was he going to try to sleep in bed again tonight? Or maybe the dream was a sign that he just wasn’t ready. If he’d mentioned it to Christina she might have given him some advice about it. But, as he hadn’t, he'd just have to work it out on his own. He didn’t want to give up sleeping in the bed entirely. It felt like an important indicator of progress that he be able to manage this. But on the other hand he really didn’t think he could cope if he had another dream like that. 

One dream like that was too many. 

In the meantime the TV was in the wrong room and he didn’t feel like dragging it backwards and forwards all the time. Maybe he needed a second television. Seemed a bit excessive, but why not?

He decided he would figure that out later. For now, he was still trying to work out what to do about Rostov. Whether the dream had completely put him off from pursuing answers, or whether he would continue to push forward regardless.

Rostov had been in the dream too, whispering cryptic statements into his ear. 

This isn’t the first time. But it will be the last.

It made him shudder. The whole dream made him shudder, from start to finish. If he never had a dream like that again it would be too soon. He pushed the dream from his mind, and returned his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Should he continue to pursue these answers about Rostov? 

Even if he wanted to continue, how would he even do so? His only lead was Zemo, and Zemo was barred from him. 

Bucky grabbed a notebook, not his self care notebook, but one of his older ones. Opened it to a fresh page and started making some notes.

Rostov. Zemo. Karpov. Karpov’s papers. Rumlow. 

He couldn't go back to Rumlow. That was as closed off to him as visiting Zemo was. 

Karpov’s papers. Zemo had killed Karpov back in 2015 or 2016 and found the papers in Cleveland. Bucky could travel there fairly easily but what would be the point? There'd be nothing there now to find. Zemo had taken the papers with him. 

He wrote down another name. Oeznik. And drew a line from Zemo to Oeznik. Zemo’s butler, who had most likely killed the remaining Flagsmashers on Zemo’s instructions. A man who had access to all of Zemo’s unlimited resources, and who held Zemo’s trust. If anyone knew where the papers were, if they were still anywhere, or what was in them, it would be Oeznik. But where to find him?

Zemo said he had homes all over the world. The only one Bucky knew of was the one they had visited in Latvia. But he wasn’t going to be able to go to Latvia now. He’d never get permission to leave the country, not now. Not for this reason.  Even if he could go to Latvia, so what? Oeznik was probably somewhere else, somewhere no-one knew about. Bucky could leave a message, or send a letter but what good would that do? No guarantee it would end up in the right hands and, even if it did, no guarantee of a response. 

He groaned and slumped forward. It was just one dead end after another. 

He could find Oeznik. Bucky knew how to locate people, track them, hunt them down. But he was confined here. He had therapy. He had rules. He couldn't just set out on his own. 

God this was so frustrating. He couldn't do anything. He was so constrained. 

He crossed out Zemo’s name, and then Rumlow’s and then was about to draw a line through Oeznik’s name when a thought occurred to him. He couldn't go off and find the man, not himself. But someone else could for him. Someone who wasn't Sam, because he refused to involve Sam in this. Not just because there were certain things he never wanted Sam to know about, but also because Sam’s focus was elsewhere right now, as it should be. 

Anyway, after that dream the last thing Bucky wanted to do right now was talk to Sam. He was even considering cancelling their plans for Tuesday, make up some excuse. He didn’t know how he could look Sam in the eye after… after…

No. He wasn’t going to think about it again. He had to move his thoughts away from the dream. Away from Sam. Those thoughts were not leading anywhere good right now. 

Ayo, he thought suddenly. A flash of inspiration. The Dora Milaje were highly skilled and had access to the best technology in the world. It wouldn't take her long to track down Zemo’s ancient butler. He just had to get a message to her to ask if she would agree. And she might. Ayo had been his friend for a long time, had always treated him with respect. She might agree to help him. At least she would understand why this mattered to him. They’d parted on good terms and she had agreed to ask Shuri to make Sam his uniform, wings and drone, even after everything that had happened with Zemo. And he'd returned Zemo to prison. She might agree.

He tapped his pen on the paper and considered harder. He had no way of making contact with Ayo. But Wakanda had been building outreach centres all across the country over the last few years. And if he wasn't mistaken, there was one still operating in New Jersey. He wrote that on the page too, and circled it. 

So it was decision making time, he thought. He could either go to the Wakandans and ask for their help, or he could drop the matter entirely and accept the gaps that would remain, and that there would be things he would never know.

If he continued there was the danger that he would learn things that could be incredibly distressing and painful. The consequences could make his nightmare last night look like a walk in the park. 

He felt certain that if he gave up he would regret that more, no matter the consequences. If all he learned was more sorrow and pain then so be it. It would be worth it. 

And just like that, he was decided. This was his story, after all.

Everyone should know their own story. 

Chapter 58: The Hardest Person to Forgive is Yourself

The Hardest Person to Forgive is Yourself

 

Bucky chose to sleep in the bed again on Friday night. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. He was petrified that he might have another dream like the last one, but it also felt too much like failure if he didn’t persevere. If he let the dream spook him from trying who knew when he would next feel able to sleep in a bed again. The additional thought of having to explain to Christina why he’d given up attempting to sleep in his bed was also a sufficient motivator to try again. 

It took him hours to fall asleep. He set his phone alarm to go off every hour, just in case. That way, if he did have any dreams, they wouldn’t last for long. Needless to say, he didn’t sleep very well, but he did make it through the whole night in bed. That felt like a win, and he added it to his notebook when he woke up. Something to add to his slowly growing list of self-care activities, not quite a success but definitely more than a failure.

He felt like he’d barely slept at all, but thankfully he’d spent the night dream free. His brain was groggy and sleep deprived but the decision he’d come to the night before remained as clear as day, as did his resolve. He was going to go to the Wakandan outreach centre and leave a message for Ayo, asking for her help. He wasn’t sure whether this would accomplish anything, but it was the only pathway he had. She might say no. She might say yes but still not be able to find anything. Maybe she would find Oeznik and he couldn’t or wouldn’t help. Maybe Zemo had been full of shit after all, lying about Karpov’s documents and what they contained. 

Or maybe she would not only find Oeznik, but also Karpov’s files as well. There was a very real possibility, even if it were a small one, that not long from now he could be reading all those papers that Zemo had told him about. Have all those blanks filled in, all those questions answered, not just about Rostov but possibly about other areas of his life and history as well. 

Going back decades, Zemo had said. Almost like diary entries from different handlers detailing all the issues they’d had with the Winter Soldier over the years. The attachments he formed. His tendency to go off on tangents during mission reports. His hero complex. 

Even after all those decades they were never able to wipe it out of you.

He wouldn't deny that he had an immense curiosity about these things as well. It would be foolish to take Zemo at his word, one could never trust Zemo to be honest about anything. The man twisted every truth to serve a purpose. He always had an agenda. But if he could see these documents for himself, read the evidence with his own eyes, then that would mean something. He wasn't quite sure exactly what. Maybe proof that even when controlled and brainwashed, he still caused problems for Hydra. His stubbornness, his morals, impossible to fully suppress.  That he wasn't just Hydra’s thrall, as Walker had put it. Not just a mindless, brainwashed slave, or a weapon, but someone who had once been Bucky Barnes, with a personality that still shone through despite everything, infuriating his handlers and causing problems for them.

He wasn’t sure whether that knowledge would make him feel better or worse; to have evidence that Bucky Barnes was always in reach, just beneath the surface. Because if that was the case, wouldn’t that make him more culpable? Was that better or worse than just being a mindless drone who followed every order without hesitation?

He wasn't really sure what he wanted to discover. But there were things to discover, really important things. And once he had, then he could make sense of them and decide how he felt about it. 

 

It was a simple task to get to the Wakandan Outreach Centre. He didn’t recognise anyone there, but he had been recognised. Barely moments after he entered the building and hesitated in the entrance he was accompanied by three women, poised and confident, who held themselves like warriors. He greeted them politely and respectfully, in Wakandan, and explained that he was trying to get in contact with Ayo.

“We’re not messengers,” one of the women said. 

“I know that,” Bucky replied. “I have no means to communicate with her, and I believe she views me as her friend. If someone could ask her to contact me, I would be grateful. I can give you my details.”

The woman studied him critically. “If Ayo wishes to speak with you, she will know how. Please mind your step on the way out.”

It was a clear dismissal, and Bucky decided against pushing back against this. She didn’t say she wouldn't pass the message on to Ayo. While she hadn’t clearly expressed that she would, the implication was that Ayo might make contact if she chose to do so. As Bucky walked away he chose to take that as a positive sign. He had no choice really, there were no other options available to him. He would just have to wait and hope. 

 

When he arrived home his phone buzzed with a message from Christina. Details about the group session she’d promised, or in his view threatened, to send him. He sighed as he read through the message. 

Just think about it, she wrote at the bottom. We can talk about this on Monday.  

Christina wanted him to have other things to fill his time and occupy his mind that weren’t about uncovering Hydra mysteries. She wanted him to get out and meet people, broaden his horizons, and make friends. To add more people to his life, people other than Sam. To fill his world with something more. 

He understood why Christina saw this as something so important. And he couldn’t say that Christina was wrong either. His life felt so empty right now. Devoid of meaning. And there were times when the loneliness really got to him. That brief stint travelling the world with Sam had shown him what life could be, and now it was over, everything felt so much more meaningless than it had before. Wiling away his days attending therapy, moping over Sam, and obsessing about the past. There had to be more than this. 

He dropped the phone on the kitchen counter and began to pace. He wasn’t going to go, obviously. Group therapy wasn’t for him. Too many strangers. People might recognise him. They might ask him awkward and difficult questions. 

But what if she was right? Christina was so often right, he hated to admit it but it was the truth. What if she was right and this would be good for him? When she’d asked him once what he wanted he’d replied:

I want to be well. I know I’m not

Wasn’t that what this was all about? The months of therapy. The agonising, humiliating conversations. It was all in service of getting well. Of recovering. She’d put him through Hell in therapy sessions, and he’d fought against her every step of the way, but she’d always been right. And he was doing better now, wasn’t he? At least, better than he was several months ago. Only this week Christina had commented on how he’d managed to speak about things he wouldn’t have managed a few months ago. And Sam had also noticed how much Bucky had changed.

What if this was something else that would help make him be well?

He picked up the phone and read the text again. 

She wasn’t asking him to go. She was asking him to think about it. He remembered the look of defeated resignation on her face yesterday when he made it obvious that he wasn’t actually going to think about it at all. 

She doesn’t expect me to go at all, Bucky thought. She’d sent this message because she promised that she would, but she didn’t actually expect anything to come of it. She expected to bring up the topic on Monday, meet further resistance and complaining about it, and then she would likely drop it for a few more months before bringing it up again. It would confirm what she already knew, that Bucky wasn’t ready for this yet. He wasn’t in the right place. He wasn’t making progress. This could make therapy go on for even longer, and that was the last thing he wanted.

What he wanted was for therapy to end. He wanted to stop having to take medication. He wanted to be able to go where he wanted, when he wanted without being held back by rules and expectations and appointments. 

A small spark appeared in his mind. What if he could prove her wrong? What if he went to therapy on Monday, appearing interested and curious about this group? She would be shocked. But it would undeniably be a good thing. It would show her that he was listening, taking advice. And it would help progress other things, like the meeting with Elizabeth Dugan, for example. If he could show he was making progress and getting better he might be able to stop taking his medication. It might also bring him a step closer to bringing therapy to an end. 

This was followed by a further thought, a much more terrifying one. What if he attended therapy on Monday having already attended a group session? It ran on Sundays, right? And she said yesterday he could just turn up whenever. What if he actually did this? What if he actually went to this session tomorrow morning?

His heartbeat picked up speed as he actually considered this. Could he actually go? He felt terrified at the thought, but also excited at the same time. 

He looked at the message again and googled the address, bringing up street view on Google maps so he could see St Mark’s Community Centre. He tried to picture himself walking through the front door. Could he actually do this? Was his desire to prove Christina wrong strong enough to actually compel him into doing this thing that only yesterday he’d been vehemently against?

 

He didn’t have any nightmares or dreams that night either. He spent the entire night thinking about going to the group session and googling questions about group therapy. How it worked. What to expect. What sort of things do people speak about? He watched about a dozen YouTube videos on the topic.

He managed maybe an hour and a half of sleep, in scattered five or ten minute bursts. Not only had his mind been buzzing all night, keeping him in a state of high adrenaline fear and excitement, but he also still had his phone set to go off every hour. So any time he did manage to drift off his alarm would wake him up after a few minutes and then his mind would be buzzing again. He changed his mind and back again about twenty times over the course of the night. 

By the time morning arrived and it was decision making time, he’d spent so much time agonising over it that it felt like it would be a waste if he didn’t go. All that anxiety and stress, misery and research for nothing. As he pulled on his clothes, and dug out gloves, a cap and his dark glasses he motivated himself by thinking of how surprised Christina would be when he told her tomorrow that he had actually gone to this group. She'd be speechless, if such a thing were possible; Christina was rarely lost for words. And it would be a sign of progress, that he was getting better. Getting him closer towards the ultimate end goal: getting done with therapy. 

He left his apartment without giving himself any other opportunities to talk, or think, himself out of it.

Forty minutes later he was walking through the front door of St Mark’s Community Centre, just as he had imagined it the night before. 

“Last door on the left,” the receptionist said, when he asked her where to go. “The door’s open, you can’t miss it.”

Bucky’s eyes followed the direction her finger pointed in. “I’m a little late, does that matter?” Part of him hoped that she would tell him that it did matter and give him a reason to walk away. Something that would allow him to leave without it being his decision. He was already regretting this. 

“Nah,” she replied. “Just head on in. People sometimes show up late, they won’t mind.”

“Great,” Bucky said, but he didn’t move, just hovered in front of her, feeling slightly awkward and reluctant. 

“You want me to take you down there?” the receptionist asked. 

Bucky shook his head quickly. As awkward as he was feeling already about arriving late, it would be a lot worse for him to be walked into the room like a child. He mentally pulled himself together, told himself that he could do this. He just had to walk a few steps. He thanked the receptionist and headed down the corridor towards the open door. When he reached it he paused for a moment, and then looked through the door into the hall. 

The group consisted of nine people, a mixture of men and women, sitting on chairs laid out in a rough semi circle around a man standing in the middle with a whiteboard. This must be Christina’s colleague Andrew. 

Bucky watched as Andrew wrote on the whiteboard with a thick purple marker: What does trust mean to you?

“Thanks Kara,” Andrew said, “for putting forward today’s topic for discussion. Trust is a word we use a lot, isn’t it?” He turned to address the group. “Trust in others but also trust in yourself. And trust once broken can take a Hell of a time to earn back. Does anyone have anything they want to share about trust today?”

There were about six empty chairs. He didn’t like that there were so few people. Easier to slip in unnoticed into a crowded room, and to remain silent, almost invisible and blend in. Newcomers tend to stand out in a small group, especially if the group was already well established. He remembered Christina asking him on Friday if he had any questions about the group. He wished now that he’d taken a moment to think about it rather than automatically dismissing her. 

He could just leave. Christina wasn’t even expecting him to attend today. It had been a spur of the moment decision, as always, and maybe it would be better to leave and discuss this properly with Christina tomorrow morning and actually think about something for once before diving straight into it.  

Was this just yet another example of his impulsive behaviour? Like when he decided to see Rumlow last week? Surely not. This was something Christina had wanted him to do. This wasn’t something harmful. This should be good for him. 

And anyway he was here now, and it would feel like failure to walk away, after spending all night agonising about it. 

“We were eight minutes out from FOB Delta when the MEDEVAC call came in,” a woman said. “IED had hit a convoy. I was the lead medic.”

Bucky shifted slightly, leaning forward just enough to peek inside while taking care not to draw attention to himself. The woman was older than he'd expected from her voice, mid-fifties maybe. She wasn’t looking at anyone in particular as she spoke.

“It was chaos. Smoke everywhere, and all the screaming. So much noise, I could barely hear, see or even think. I saw one of the guys, his legs were shredded, maybe thirty seconds left. Legs were gone… And I… I just froze, just stood there, just watched the blood pour out like I was watching a training video. Didn’t move until my CO screamed in my ear… By the time I got to him… by the time I moved…”

Bucky found himself transfixed, unable to move, waiting for her to finish her story. Trauma wasn’t something that was new to him, but he wasn’t often in a position to hear other people’s stories, their experiences. It was unsettling, yet at the same time oddly reassuring, to be faced with the reality of how universal trauma actually was. 

“I keep thinking if I’d just moved. If I’d done what I was trained to do... maybe he’d be alive. This was ‘09, and it still runs in my head. Over and over… on a loop. And ever since then, I lost all trust in myself.” Then very quietly she said, “The hardest person to forgive is yourself.”

That hit Bucky hard.

There were some general murmurs of agreement from around the room. “I know what that’s like,” someone said. Andrew thanked the woman for sharing, affirmed her in much the way Christina had always affirmed Bucky whenever he shared something difficult with her. 

“Freezing is a survival reflex,” Andrew said. “Hardwired. It’s not a weakness.”

Bucky’s eyes fell on the empty chairs, three of them were set apart from the group, he could slip in and sit down and it was possible no-one would notice him. Everyone was looking at the woman sharing her story.  No-one was looking towards the door. He could risk it. He tried to channel how he would feel telling Christina about this. Imagined telling Christina about how he went to the group session, not only went but stayed as well. 

He stepped back from the door and quickly checked himself over. Touched his sunglasses to make sure they were still on, adjusted his cap, checked his sleeves and gloves. All good. Incognito. 

Bucky stepped inside quietly and made a beeline towards one of the empty chairs, the one furthest away from the group. He deliberately made a point of walking with his head down, so that he wouldn't notice if Andrew had clocked his arrival, or if anyone was turning to look at him.

“I was in a logistics unit.” A male voice this time. Bucky quickly sat down in the chair, and tried to make himself appear as unnoticeable as possible. A man sitting close to him glanced over, and then looked away. Bucky stared at the floor, pulse thudding in his ears, hoping he hadn’t drawn attention to himself.

“One night something went wrong,” the man continued. “It was the generator. I forgot to triple check one of the cables, and boom… three guys in my unit didn’t make it.”

“You didn’t cause the fire,” another woman said. 

“I feel like I did,” the man snapped. Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Anyway… ever since then,” he continued, “I check everything. Multiple times. Whenever I leave the house. Especially the cooker. I run in and out of the house over and over again every time I leave. And then I have to check the front door’s locked each time too, of course. Drives my family crazy. They trust me, but I don’t. I don’t think I ever can.” He looked over towards the woman who’d spoken before him. “I can’t forgive myself, either.”

“Are there days where you trust yourself more than others?” Andrew asked. 

Bucky watched the man shrug. “Maybe. Some days I only check the stove three times instead of seven.”

“What’s different on those days?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “Just had a better morning, I suppose.”

The man who’d glanced at Bucky earlier spoke up. “Routine, maybe. If I lose my morning routine I know the day’s going to hell. So I don’t bother.”

Andrew wrote the word ‘routine’ on the whiteboard, and invited contributions from the rest of the group. To Bucky’s relief no-one asked anything of him. As time passed, and no one paid him any more attention, he felt able to relax slightly. Just a little bit. He even found himself thinking about trust, today’s topic of conversation. He certainly lacked trust in himself, in his choices, in his past decisions. It was clear, from the contributions from the other members of the group, that lacking trust in oneself wasn’t unique to him, it was a common thread. As was the inability to forgive oneself for past decisions, mistakes, action or inaction. Everyone seemed to be carrying their own ghosts. Some blamed themselves for what they’d done, or not done. While others blamed themselves for surviving at all when others had died. These were things he understood all too well. 

“What I’m hearing from most of you,” said Andrew, “is about guilt. And how much that guilt has shaped the way you live today. That’s a really hard place to live in.”

The hardest person to forgive is yourself  

After about twenty minutes Andrew announced a break and everyone stood up, apart from Bucky. Half the group went over the tables at the far end of the room to help themselves to coffee and snacks. The others formed a small huddle and appeared deep in conversation. Only one other person remained apart from the others. The man sitting closest to Bucky, who had looked over earlier.

Bucky eyed the man cautiously out of the corner of his eye, mentally praying that the man wouldn't come over and talk to him. But it clearly wasn’t his lucky day as the man did exactly that. 

Bucky pulled himself to his feet as the man approached, his eyes quickly darting towards the exit wondering if it would appear rude to just walk away. Of course it would appear rude, he told himself. Not to mention disrespectful. Anyway, these were just normal people, for heaven’s sake. He wasn’t so socially inept that he couldn’t manage an interaction with a stranger. He knew how to talk to people. Sure, the setting was unusual and not what he was used to, but it was still human interaction. 

Pull yourself together Barnes, he told himself. Stop being ridiculous. 

“First time?” the man asked.

“That obvious?” Bucky said.

The man let out a laugh. “Well,” he said, “I’m here every week and, as you can see, it's a small group. But yeah, your body language doesn’t exactly scream confidence. You look like you’re about to run away if anyone so much as looks at you. We don’t bite, you know.”

“I know that,” Bucky said quickly. With a stab of guilt he remembered how he referred to people attending these groups as ‘crazy’ in conversation with Christina on Friday. He knew that description wasn’t fair or kind, and now he’d heard their stories he felt even worse about it.  

“I’m Paul.” Paul extended his arm. Bucky reached out and gave it a very light shake. He didn’t give his name.

“What brings you here?” Paul asked.

Bucky considered this for a moment. “My therapist,” he said eventually. “You?”

“My wife,” Paul said. “Well, my soon to be ex-wife, I suppose. It depends.”

Bucky felt astonished by Paul’s openness. Everyone here was so open. Talking about trauma, their personal lives and experiences as if they were all best of friends. Paul might know the others very well, but Bucky was new here. Did they really all feel that safe here?

Was that why people came to these groups? Bucky wondered. For solidarity? To sit in a room amongst others with a shared lived experience, comforted by the knowledge that they weren’t the only ones who suffered. To share without explanation, without shame, knowing that they would be understood and not judged.

He couldn’t imagine ever feeling that safe. 

“Depends on what?” Bucky asked.

Paul shrugged. “How I get on. She was my rock, you know? But she got sick of me trauma dumping on her all the time and gave me an ultimatum.”

“Trauma dumping?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “You know, treating her like my therapist. Unleashing all my trauma on her all the time. Helps me. Doesn’t help her. So I've been coming here for several months now and maybe, one day, she’ll come back.”

Bucky frowned. He’d never heard that phrase, and Paul’s description of its meaning was unsettling, for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He thought of Sam and felt slightly uneasy.

Someone called Paul’s name and he turned too fast and stumbled. On instinct Bucky reached out and grabbed Paul’s arm, to steady him. 

“Oh thanks.” Paul caught his balance, and Bucky let go of his arm. “I’m still breaking in the new leg, it’s being a real pain in the ass.”

Paul lifted up the leg of his trousers revealing a prosthetic leg. “Haven’t been able to do ballet for a long time,” he joked.

Bucky stared at the man’s leg in astonishment. And then quickly averted his gaze, heat rising in his face, as he realised that he was staring, no gawking, at the man’s leg as if he’d never seen a prosthetic limb before. 

“I get that a lot.” Paul let his trousers drop back to cover his leg. “Everyone stares.”

Bucky had a sudden urge to explain himself to Paul, to tell him that he wasn’t like everyone else, staring out of morbid curiosity, or pity. To explain that he understood and knew what it was like to be the object of people’s fascination. 

The first thing anyone did whenever they met him for the first time was look at his left arm, even when it was covered. He saw it every time, saw their eyes flicker down and then quickly away when they realised what they were doing. Seeing them flinch. A flash of something, either pity or fear in their eyes. Just as he had done with Paul. It felt surreal to be on the other side of it, for once.

“I guess the next thing is you’ll want to know what happened,” Paul said. 

“That’s none of my business,” Bucky replied quickly.

But Paul carried on as if Bucky hadn’t said anything at all. “I know it looks bad but you should have seen the other guy.” 

Bucky blinked, not sure if Paul was joking and uncertain of how to respond. He settled for a slightly awkward smile.

“That was a joke,” Paul clarified. “There was no other guy. Just me, an armoured truck, and a whole load of poor decision making in sunny, delightful Helmand province.” 

Paul tapped his prosthetic leg. “They tried to save my leg, but it looked like something left on a barbecue too long! Smelled as bad too. So… here we are.” He gave a flourish. “Ta-da!”

Hiding his pain with humour, Bucky thought. Paul seemed casual and at ease, but there was a slight tremor in his voice which gave him away. 

“Oh,” Bucky said. “That sounds… rough.” Rough probably didn’t come close, but he didn’t know what else to say.  

“Believe it or not, I was one of the lucky ones that day. I survived, relatively intact.” Paul tapped his leg. “That’s more than I can say for the others.”

More severely injured, Bucky wondered, or dead?

“Anyway,” Paul said. “That’s enough about me, I tend to overshare. What about you? Where did you serve?”

Bucky blinked at Paul, and found himself all of a sudden struck completely dumb. He didn’t know how to answer that question at all. He opened his mouth only to close it again. His mind was completely blank. He felt his heart beat pick up speed as Paul waited expectantly for an answer, and his mind screamed at him to say something, anything. 

And then, even worse, he could see Andrew approaching from the other side of the room, where he’d been talking to some of the others. Presumably coming to greet the newcomer and make introductions. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. He swallowed and stepped backwards. “I'm sorry, I have to go.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just turned and walked away. He knew he was being unbelievably rude, not to mention odd and suspicious, but he couldn’t stay there a moment longer. How could he not have anticipated that someone might ask him a question like that? If he had, he might have prepared an acceptable answer.

He picked up speed as he made his way back down the corridor, and once outside, he moved faster still until the community hall was out of sight. Then he slowed back down.

Well, he thought, that was a complete and utter shambles. He wasn’t in a hurry to repeat that excruciatingly embarrassing experience ever again. But at least he went. That had to count for something, surely?

Chapter 59: A Lonely Way of Living

Notes:

Apologies for the slight delay. We had a heatwave in the UK (as did most of Europe I think) and it made me so unwell. Heat gives me migraines. Better now :) Had a thunderstorm today, very exciting! So stayed in and got this chapter ready.

A Lonely Way of Living

 

At 3 am, Bucky finally got fed up with his sleep being disrupted every hour. He’d just have to risk the nightmares, because being woken up so often was driving him up the wall. It was unbearably frustrating. It felt like every time he drifted off, he was yanked back before he could get any real rest. So he took the risk and turned off the hourly alarm. To his great relief, he woke on Monday morning, in bed, dream and nightmare free, and feeling almost refreshed.

He was just getting ready to leave for therapy, when his phone rang. An unknown number. He stared at it for a second in mild alarm before it occurred to him that it would most likely be Ayo. He dropped his gloves in his rush to answer the call before it rang out. If he missed her, she’d probably never give him another chance, and he had no way of calling her back.

To his relief, it was her. He recognised her voice instantly. After all the attempts to remove the trigger words, her voice was burned into his soul. Musical, lyrical, but with a hint of sharpness and authority as well. 

He thanked her for calling, and asked her to pass on his thanks to the women who’d passed on his request. Wakandans were big on giving respect where it is due, and he wasn’t going to risk causing any offence. 

“A favour so soon after the last one?” she asked. “I see Wilson has been making use of the equipment provided for him.”

Bucky belatedly realised that he had never actually thanked her for that. Not that he’d had the means to.

“Please pass on my gratitude,” he said, “and Sam’s too.”

“Wilson already has,” she replied. That made him pause for a moment. He hadn’t known that Sam had a way of communicating with the Wakandans. Maybe it was through the suit itself.  

He explained what he was hoping Ayo would help him with. About the paperwork Zemo had told him about, and his theory that Oeznik, the butler, might know what it contained, or might even still have it. 

“I can find him,” Ayo said. Bucky had no doubt that she could find Zemo’s ancient butler. Her ability to do so wasn’t in question.

“Would you, though?” he asked her. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. It’s…” he hesitated, searching for the right words to persuade her. “It’s my story,” he said. “My history. All the things I still can’t remember.”

He knew that Wakandans placed great value on history and legacy. They had a proud oral tradition, passing on songs and stories from generation to generation over hundreds of years, never written down. It was woven into their identity. He was sure that Ayo would understand the importance of reclaiming his own identity. 

She asked him whether he had been expressly forbidden from accessing these documents, and he could truthfully say no. But he wasn’t going to lie by omission, either so he did admit that he had been forbidden from asking Zemo. 

“I should think so,” was all she said to that. Then: “I will make contact with you soon.”

She hung up before he could even say ‘thank you’ let alone ask if that meant she was going to help him.

He pulled on his gloves, cap and dark glasses. Since being all over the news last weekend he wasn’t going to risk being recognised on the street, so he’d been covering up much more than usual. As he left his apartment he figured that, like the Wakandans on Saturday, that if it was a ‘no’, Ayo would have said so outright.

He made his way to therapy, trying to figure out how best to bring up the group therapy session with Christina. It felt like it had been a mixed success, especially as he’d already decided that he wasn’t going to go back. He couldn’t decide whether attending would be a point in his favour or whether quitting after just one session would count against him. 

Maybe he wouldn’t mention it at all. But that wouldn’t work, he realised, because she’d ask about it anyway. She’d said on Friday that they would talk about it today. He’d have to tell her he’d already gone. 

So he did. Shortly after sitting down and peeling off his gloves, jacket, dark glasses and cap, he said, “So I stopped by that group yesterday.” He hoped he sounded casual, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.”

“Yes I know,” she said. “Andrew rang me. He thought it was you.”

That caught him off guard.

“How did he know it was me?” Bucky asked, feeling slightly perturbed that he might have been recognised after all. 

“I told him on Saturday you might come by. I asked him to keep an eye out.”

Bucky frowned and then the meaning of her words sank in.

“No you didn’t, you didn’t know I was going. How could you…?” He trailed off, and thought about it. She’d mentioned the group on Friday, then sent him the details on Saturday, told him they’d talk about it on Monday. It was that message that had given him the resolve to go. He’d gone because…

“You played me,” he accused. He wasn’t sure whether to feel hurt or impressed. 

“No, I didn’t,” Christina replied. “I observed your past behaviour and made an educated guess. So I took the liberty of advising Andrew that you might show up, just in case. I didn’t know for certain you would go, but I had a good feeling you might.”

Bucky stared at her in astonishment. “And here I thought that I might actually shock you by going.” He shook his head, and gave a short laugh. “Am I really so predictable?”

“I wouldn’t say predictable,” she said. “You still manage to shock and surprise me in many ways. But you have a… let’s say, a unique style of defiance based progress, which I decided to lean into for once.”

Bucky laughed again, deciding that he wasn’t cross with her after all. After all this time together, she just knew him too well. 

“So much for proving you wrong.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I’m not underestimating what it took for you to walk in there. Andrew said you stayed for the whole first half. That’s an incredible achievement.”

“Don’t get too excited.” Bucky’s humour evaporated instantly. “I’m not going back.”

She nodded. “Yes, I was told that you left quite quickly. You were talking to someone?”

Bucky shifted in his seat. So he was going to talk about this, then? He supposed it was for the best. 

“It wasn’t anything Paul said or did,” he clarified quickly, not wanting to put the blame on the other man. “Not deliberately anyway. He was… nice, I suppose.” 

He recalled Paul stumbling, then lifting up his trouser leg to show his prosthesis. The weird moment of stunned shock while Bucky’s brain scrambled to catch up to what he was seeing. The awkward silence. Paul’s attempts at humour. And then Paul asking Bucky a question that he had no idea how to answer.

“He asked me where I served,” Bucky said. “And my mind just went blank. I didn’t know what to say and I just… I don’t know, I panicked.”

“And this is why, when I brought this up on Friday, I was hoping we could talk it through first,” she said. “We could have brainstormed some ways to handle difficult questions. How to respond to issues that might arise. Prepare scripts.”

“Scripts?” That put Bucky in mind of roleplaying, something he hated doing with her.

“Scripts,” she repeated. “Just ways of anticipating tricky issues and questions, and preparing answers. So if your brain freezes and you get stuck in flight or fight mode, you’ve got something ready. A response you’ve already practiced.”

“Well, what could I have said,” Bucky asked, “when Paul asked me that question?”

“For one thing,” Christina said, “you can always fall back on: I’m sorry I don’t want to talk about that. That is a perfectly valid answer in almost any situation."

 Bucky slumped back in his seat, feeling a bit stupid. That seemed so obvious. Why couldn’t he have thought of that?

“But,” he objected, “what if they don’t listen?”

“In most settings,” she said, “especially in a therapeutic setting, I would expect people would respect that boundary, and expect it to be respected in return. And if not, you can speak to Andrew.”

Bucky licked his lips. He still felt unconvinced.

“What if someone recognises me?” he asked quietly. “Or what if… what if the Winter Soldier… what if I was involved with them before? A woman there said she was fighting in 2009. And Paul said he was injured in Helmand Province.”

He hesitated.

“I was… involved in those wars. To some extent.”

Even if it was unlikely that he’d ever had any interaction with any of the people in the group, these kinds of horrible coincidences can happen; Yori was proof of that. 

Christina nodded slowly. “It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely. And even if someone did recognise you, that doesn’t mean they’d confront you, or even say anything at all. You have the right to be there just as much as anyone else. And you’re not being thrown in unprepared. I didn't bring up this session on Friday on a whim. I’ve been in discussions with Andrew for several weeks about his group. It used to be my group, I told you that. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t think it would be a good fit for you.”

“But…” He still wanted to push against this and find a flaw in her logic. Something that would give him a valid excuse for not having to go back. The thought of walking back into that room again made him feel sick.

“What if they recognise me?” he said. “What do I say? Yes, I’m the Winter Soldier. Yes, I might have killed members of your unit, or other American soldiers during the wars you fought in. But guess what, I’m coming to therapy with you.” He grimaced. “It seems so… disrespectful. Like… they’re there for real reasons. And I… well.” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at himself, unable to put his thoughts into words. 

“You’re saying,” Christina said gently, “that they have legitimate reasons for being there, and you don’t. Is that right?”

 Bucky sighed. “I don’t know if that’s exactly what I mean. But that’s how it would look to them. How could it not?”

“Trauma’s not a competition,” she said. “No one person’s trauma is more or less justified than anyone else’s, nor more worthy of accessing support. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but what you’ve been through matters too.”

Bucky shook his head, unconvinced. That might be factually true, but in the real world he doubted that people would see it that way.

“That discomfort you’re feeling,” she said. “That’s shame. It’s telling you that your pain doesn’t count because of the things you’ve done. But we know that shame lies.”

Shame again. It always ended up being about shame.

“I’d like to think,” she went on, “that one day you’ll feel able to go places just as you are, without feeling the need to hide.”

He scoffed at that. “I don’t see that ever happening.”

“It did, though,” she said, “didn’t it? In Louisiana with Sam. You told me that you didn't cover up. Didn’t hide yourself from anyone.”

“Sam was there,” Bucky said. 

Sam's presence alone made him feel more able to be himself. He was like a buffer, a shield, that protected Bucky from feeling self conscious and awkward. There’d been people around, on the docks. But they’d been Sam’s neighbours, friends, his community. Bucky had felt safe there, safe enough not to cover up, hide his identity, hide his metal arm. It was different now.

“That makes sense,” Christina said. “Sam makes you feel safe and able to be yourself. I’m very glad that you have someone who gives you that.”

She paused a moment, then continued.

“It might be worth asking yourself if it would help to have that same ease with other people too. People who aren’t Sam. So you’re not solely dependent on him to feel that safe.”

Bucky let out a wry smile. “People like Sam don’t grow on trees,” he said. He fiddled with his gloves, resting in his lap. “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he mumbled. “I just… I don’t see it happening.”

“I’m not expecting you to turn up to the session next Sunday, introducing yourself properly to people and telling them all about yourself. You’re not ready for that, and that's okay. But I do think it's worth asking yourself how you want to connect to people in the long term. People who aren’t Sam, or connected to him.”

Bucky tried to picture it, introducing himself to someone as himself. Arm out. Face and hair uncovered. Hiding nothing. On display. It seemed unreal and impossible. 

“You can carry on the way you are,” Christina said, “hiding your identity from people and keeping them at arm’s length, always waiting for them to figure it out. It is one way of choosing to engage with the world but I think it’s a very lonely way of living. And I don’t believe that’s what you really want.”

“I don’t,” he said in a small voice. “I don’t want that.” 

He looked away. “Sometimes I do feel very… alone,” he admitted. “I feel lonely. And I want to have…” He choked, and broke off, because this was a very hard thing to admit to. “I want to have friends again.” 

Back in the time before, he made friends so easily. He’d been easy to talk to, funny, charismatic. People liked him. But he wasn’t that same person anymore. 

Bucky quickly wiped at his eyes. 

“You know,” Christina said, “a lot of people who’ve been through trauma struggle to reconnect. The first step is wanting that connection. That's a big step in itself.”

“But how can I?” Bucky asked. “How can I make friends with people?”

He shook his head. “I made friends with Yori, but it wasn’t real, because it was all built on a lie. And I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not. But I also can’t imagine just telling someone…” 

He thought of Paul, the man from the group. What if he’d just shaken Paul’s hand and said, I’m Bucky Barnes? 

There’s no way that would have ended well.

He shrugged helplessly. “What are the options? Hide who I am until they figure it out, or tell them upfront and deal with the hatred and judgement? Either way it all ends badly.”

“People are always going to have opinions of you,” she said. “Positive or negative. You can’t control that. What matters is how you see yourself. And right now you still carry so much shame, and negative beliefs about yourself. So it’s hard to imagine anyone else thinking differently. But there are people out there you can be honest with. People who will respond with kindness and not judgement. But you have to make the first step and I know that’s a terrifying prospect.”

He stared down at the floor, heart pumping furiously in his chest as he considered actually doing what she was suggesting. 

“You were so brave for going yesterday,” she said, her voice soothing. “It was such a big first step, and you did so well.”

“I wanted to prove you wrong,” he mumbled. 

“Your motivations might have been oppositional,” she said. He chanced a glance up at her and was relieved to see that she was smiling. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you went, and I know it was difficult for you to do.”

“I didn't stay,” he reminded her. “I left early.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The important thing is that you went. And you don't have to go next week and suddenly tell everyone who you are, or why you’re there. You can build up to that, if you want to. Taking one step doesn’t mean you have to go all the way.”

“You really think I should go back?” he asked reluctantly. 

“I think it would be good for you to try,” Christina replied. “How do you feel about that?”

He shrugged again. “I guess… I went once so… I could go again. I’ll think about it. But I’m not telling anyone who I am.” He paused. “Not yet, anyway. I can… I can see the benefit in going.”

“That’s a big change from Friday,” she pointed out. “I’m curious. What do you think those benefits are?”

“Well, I suppose…” he thought for a moment. “It’s something else to do. Somewhere else to go. Thinking about things that aren’t Hydra. And also…”

He thought back to the group’s discussions about trust, hearing people’s stories. The realisation that guilt and shame wasn’t just unique to him, it was present in everyone there. 

“I guess it’s good to hear what other people have to say,” he said.

“You can relate to them,” she suggested. 

Paul’s prosthetic leg flashed across his mind.

Everyone stares.

Yes, he could relate to that. People's eyes flickering down to his left arm the moment anyone realised who he was. Everyone did it. Even Sam's sister had done so. 

“I suppose so,” he muttered, feeling a little exposed. “And also, it’s like you said before about my world being small. This is… expanding it a little, I guess. It’s just you and Sam right now."

No wonder he’d been so obsessive about his Hydra memories and Rostov. What else was there to think about?

“I think those are some very thoughtful and valid reasons for going back,” Christina said. “It’s good that you can see the benefits. It gives you ownership over that decision, instead of it being something you're doing because I told you to. It'll have a more meaningful impact.”

Absent mindedly, Bucky fiddled with his dog tags, hanging round his neck as they always were, as he considered this. 

“I didn’t go yesterday for the right reasons then,” he said. “I didn’t go because I thought it would be good for me. I went to prove you wrong. I went because I thought maybe it would speed things up. Bring all this -,” he stopped fiddling with the tags and waved a hand between Christina and him, “-to an end.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “You mean therapy?”

He nodded. “No offense, but I don’t want this to go on forever, you know.” 

He hesitated before asking the question that had been on his mind for a while now, but had been too terrified to ask.

“How long do you think this will last, anyway?” He tried to sound nonchalant, like he didn’t care about the answer, but he was certain that his body language betrayed him. He felt so tense, practically holding his breath.

“I can’t answer that,” she said.

He fought the urge to sigh and roll his eyes.

“But we can certainly talk about endings if you like.”

Endings, Bucky thought. Plural. What the fuck did that mean?

“Sure,” he said, still trying to sound like he didn’t really care.

“What do you imagine ending therapy will look like?” she asked.

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess one day I’ll come. And then one day I won’t. You said before you’d write a report so I guess you’ll tell me when you’re doing that.”

“It’s a sudden change, isn’t it?” she said. “Going from coming to see me three days a week to suddenly not coming at all. Most people find a transition like that very hard to manage.”

Bucky held back from saying that it sounded like the best damn thing in the world. 

“What I don’t want,” Christina said, “is therapy to an end too soon and too suddenly, and setting you up to fail. Endings are a process, just as much part of the work as anything else.”

Bucky stared at her, feeling a growing sense of dread as the prospect of therapy continuing indefinitely began to take shape. He’d never really given much thought to how therapy might end. Just assumed that at some point he’d be assessed as ‘ready’ and then unleashed into the world therapy free. Ticking the box, the conditions of his pardon met, and then… well… getting on with life. Whatever that looked like. 

“So what does this process look like?” he asked, now wishing he’d never brought this up.

“Well, I imagine it would start with a gradual reduction,” Christina said. “We’d move to weekly sessions first, the fortnightly, then monthly.”

“Monthly?” Bucky echoed, blankly. At that rate they’d be well into next year. 

“And after that, we might schedule check ins, every three months or so, just to check you're okay.”

“Every three months,” Bucky repeated, still in the same monotonous, blank tone.

“I know it sounds like a lot,” Christina said. “But ending therapy, especially when it's as intensive as this, can be difficult. We want to give you the best chance of long term success.”

“Right,” Bucky said flatly. So much for the idea of getting therapy done within the year. More like two.

All the more reason to try and move things along then.  

“So when can I start having weekly sessions?” he asked. “Can’t we do that now?”

Christina was always good at keeping her expression neutral and hiding her emotions. But Bucky was observant, and he noticed the ever so slight furrowing of her brow, and the slight tightening at the corners of her mouth before she smoothed her features over again.

“I would like you to think a little about how things have been over the last two weeks, and tell me if you think you are ready to go to weekly sessions.” she said.

The last two weeks, Bucky thought. 

Well… he’d gone to that group therapy and Christina said that was a brave step, even if he had gone for the wrong reasons. And she was always telling him how much progress he’d made. How he was opening up in ways he wouldn’t have, months ago. Talking about his experiences with Brock Rumlow, being honest about Yori. Those things had to count for something.

He opened his mouth, ready to tell her that yes, of course he was ready.

But then other things crossed his mind. His impulsive meeting with Rumlow only the week before. His recent obsession about Rostov. The dream about Sam.

He felt a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach as these things flashed through his mind. The dream in particular, because he still didn’t dare tell Christina about it even though he knew he should.

And why didn’t he want to tell her? Because he knew it would prove her right, that his fixation over Rostov was more harmful than helpful. 

And the dream had made him feel uncertain about Sam, too. Every time he thought about Sam the image of Sam morphing into Rumlow filled his mind.

He was supposed to meet with Sam tomorrow for lunch, and he was still thinking of cancelling because of that damn dream.

“No,” he said quietly. It hurt to say it. Hurt to admit out loud that even now, after all this time, after all the progress he knew he had made, that he still wasn’t ready.

“No, I’m not ready.”

Christina gave him an encouraging smile, but he felt too despondent to return it. It felt almost like he was signing his own death warrant. Consigning himself to months more of therapy.

“I know that was a hard thing to say.” Christina observed. “But it was honest. It’s painful, isn’t it? Realising that there’s still more work to do. Maybe you feel like you’ve let yourself down.”

Bucky nodded. That’s exactly how he felt. 

“But it shows real insight,” she continued, “that you were honest with me. And I want you to know that I recognise that. So I have a suggestion. When you think you are ready to move to weekly sessions, I want you to tell me. And I will listen and we will make that decision together.”

“Really?” Bucky asked, and his spirits lifted just a tiny bit as that actually sounded promising. Like light at the end of the tunnel. 

“Yes,” Christina said. “I want us to work on this together.”

Even though it had felt like admitting failure, he’d actually managed to say the right thing. And not just because he was trying to say the right thing, going through the motions as he sometimes did, ticking the boxes, but because he’d really meant it. And it had earned her trust. Admitting that he wasn’t ready had somehow actually managed to help him.

Therapy really made his head hurt sometimes. 

Notes:

I haven't responded to comments from the last chapter yet - sorry I usually try to reply to every single one. It's midnight here now so I'm going to bed, but will reply over the next few days. I don't want anyone to feel ignored or unappreciated :)

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 5 of The Trials and Tribulations of James Bucky Barnes