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“I’m invisible. I’m turning into you. It’s like a horrible dream,” Bucky said, hoping he didn’t sound as bitter as he felt.
Thankfully, Steve allowed the comment to pass as nothing more than wry humor, clasping him gently on the shoulder. Bucky stiffened under his hand, an annoying reflex that had yet to leave.
Steve removed his hand immediately, a sad twist to his mouth.
“Don’t take it so hard. Maybe she’s got a friend,” he joked back with a forced smile, leaving Bucky alone in the dimly lit corner of the tavern.
There were others from the 107th in the space around him, but they were high on drinks and dancing, all bright smiles now that they’d been freed from Hell.
Too bad he was still there.
No one approached him for a dance like they would have back in Brooklyn, which suited him just fine. His eyes glazed over, tired down to his bones with an exhaustion that had nothing to do with anything physical.
Bucky lowered his gaze to the ground, pulling out a cigarette and lit it with trembling fingers, leaning back against the wall with a heavy sigh as he breathed out a cloud of smoke.
There had been a time when Steve looked at him the way he was looking at Carter tonight. Not that he could entirely blame him; she was a knockout, and a competent agent to boot.
Unlike himself, she wasn't held together by duck tape and sheer force of will.
Those days were gone now, and he’d selfishly taken them for granted. Years of feeling like the other half of Steve’s whole, until Zola – well. Bucky didn’t want to think about him much or he was bound to get sick all over his uniform right there.
Steve had never been weak, but Bucky was. This fucking war, that fucking factory in Kreischberg; it’d hollowed him out until Steve looked at him like he was fragile, about to shatter into pieces at any second. Broken. He shouldn’t be worrying after Bucky at all. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go, not with them.
All he had to do was harden himself inside and out, and quit with the self-pitying shit. It’s what Steve needed if Bucky was going to be watching his six. If he couldn’t protect him or the team, what use would he be then?
He walked up to the bar to put out his half-finished cigarette, nodding a silent goodbye to the others as he walked out into the night, trying not to think of chains, scalpels, or needles filled with substances that set his blood afire.
Steve was grateful to have Bucky back at his side, but he’d been more than a little concerned since he pulled him out of that factory, close to death.
However, once the Commandos were officially made SSR agents, sent out to search and destroy HYDRA bases of importance, something in Bucky changed.
It wasn’t a development that became blatantly obvious to him until the night Bucky took out multiple hostiles in a sniper’s nest the rest of them had overlooked. Five perfect headshots, a detail Steve was certain only he could see with his newly enhanced vision.
“Nice job there, Buck,” he said warmly, turning to nod at his friend. The smile dropped from his face as soon as he laid eyes on him.
"Thanks, Cap." Bucky’s face was completely blank and distant, barely acknowledging him, his voice unsettlingly detached and toneless. “We should head east so the trees give us some cover. There could be more of them up ahead,” he added, shouldering his rifle and marching eastward without waiting for the team.
None of them were strangers to taking a life, but neither had they done so in such a mechanical way. They were all soldiers, used to their training, but the way Bucky moved was positively ghost-like, taking out target after target with uncanny precision and stealth.
Uncertain, Steve surreptitiously glanced at Dugan, who’d been with Bucky since basic, who’d been in the trenches with him from the start. The other man said nothing, but adjusted his bowler hat while avoiding his gaze, looking similarly discomfited.
It was impossible to ignore the obvious differences after that.
After Kreischberg, Bucky had flinched at every sharp sound, jumped at the slightest unexpected touch, and made every effort to convince the Commandos he was fine, but that person was now almost entirely absent. Steve had worried for him then. He was closer to disturbed now.
By silent agreement, Steve and the Commandos said nothing of it – after all, they were there to get results, and Bucky was easily their second best asset. Ruthlessly efficient to a point that they received nothing but praise from the SSR on their mission outcomes.
It wasn’t as though Bucky completely isolated himself from them. He’d occasionally joke and speak familiarly with the other men, but it was perfunctory at best.
Bucky didn’t avoid Steve either; he sometimes sat next to him to reminisce about home, but his retelling of fond memories felt emptier and emptier each time, as though he was humoring him.
Steve didn't know what to do with this stranger. This specter who moved so quietly he was capable of sneaking up on Steve himself, terrifyingly lethal with a blade in close quarters, and mercilessly taking out every HYDRA soldier he could as though he had a score to settle. Maybe he did.
It had been so much easier to worry about Bucky than to be afraid for him, for what he was becoming.
For the first time in a long time, Steve prayed to no one in particular, hoping he could bring his Bucky back; whether it was his friend from back home, or that skittish creature he’d become after being rescued from Zola’s torment. Either option was better than this…shell.
Surely, once this war was finally over, they could go home, and Bucky would remember exactly who he was.