makinglies | Two ancient losers

Entry tags:

Two ancient losers

To anyone else, he'd look like some homeless person camping out in front of the World War II memorial, he certainly looked the part. He wore torn jeans, dirty shoes, a t-shirt that only had the virtue of being somewhat clean because he'd 'obtained' it recently and a faded hoodie he wore to cover the arm he couldn't stand to look at. He'd shaved all of twice in the last two months and only because he was aware it was getting too long--something that had always been taken care of for him--but now it was grown in again, a steady layer of scruff that couldn't be called a beard but was no where near simple fuzz. He looked like he wasn't taking care of himself...mostly because he wasn't, he only half remembered how. It didn't seem important compared to everything else that consisted of the static in his head.

It had been two months since he'd first noticed someone was trying to track him down. He assumed the reason he hadn't been found before that was because the person doing the tracking hadn't expected him to stick around D.C. initially. But he'd needed answers.

Unfortunately, those answers weren't too quick in coming. There were flashes--there had always been flashes--whispers of color strung through a black and white existence that had no context, made no sense and had no place in a world full of orders and pain, so they'd been discarded. At least until one man had claimed to know him and he knew the man back, or rather he felt he knew him. It was the strongest flash of color yet and it had given context to some of those whispers.

They had tried to kill those colors, to wipe them clean of his mind and they'd succeeded for a time. But now that he was looking for them they easily came back, never truly wiped, just buried. There were so many of them now, flashes of things he thought maybe he remembered but were still out of place, feelings he could name and knew he felt at one time but now couldn't tell if he was truly feeling them or if he was simply remembering.

There were too many holes. His mind was a wreck, a patchwork that had come undone and he couldn't find the needle and thread to sew it back together. He was confused, frustrated and lost. There was a disconnect between the man known as The Winter Soldier, the unfeeling, remorseless assassin and the man he'd read about, Bucky Barnes. He knew them both and could remember enough of each to know he wasn't either of them anymore. He didn't know who he was.

But maybe there was someone who did, someone who knew both and could take all of those patches, line them up for him, and hand him the means to fix what wasn't permanently broken. And if they couldn't, he at least knew Captain America would be strong enough to eliminate the threat he knew he still posed. Just as in some ways there was some Bucky Barnes still in him, there was some Winter Soldier as well; he was still at fault for all that he'd done and he was still a weapon--a tool-- that could be picked up by someone else and used again if he couldn't find his own way.

And standing here in front of this memorial, staring at a name that deserved to be up there with all of those other heroes--those other sacrifices--while he was left forgotten in the shadows, he didn't know that he could. So he waited.

He waited because he'd made certain he'd been spotted so there was a thread to follow, something for Steve Rogers to pick up and maybe lead him to the ghost he'd been chasing for who knew how long. He didn't know how long it would need to wait, but it didn't really matter when he had nowhere else to go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They fought together as brothers-in-arms. They died together and now they sleep side by side.

The words on the memorial are ones burned into Steve Roger's psyche, ones that have caused him no end of guilt before now. He'd only ever lost one man under his direct command, only one of the Howling Commandos hadn't made it out alive, and Steve's still not entirely sure he did despite the figure - disheveled and still - standing with his hood up and his face towards the gray wall of the World War II memorial in DC. He'd always thought that if they were going to die, it would have been together. But only if. They were supposed to live, to go back to New York as heroes and celebrate the hard won freedom they'd maintained for their country and for the world.

Instead Bucky had fallen and Steve had frozen and Hydra continued in the shadows unchecked, lurking and waiting until they'd struck and undermined everything that they'd fought for, that Bucky had died for back on that cold mountain peak. There's a lot to be done, a lot to be answered for, and Steve knows he should be helping the exposed SHIELD agents, should be hunting down what's left of Hydra. That's simple, at least, that's straightforward and he feels a little guilty for finding that refreshing. The world had become a complicated place while he slept. Fighting a clear, black and white bad guy is simpler.

But he has something else he has to do first. Something more important, enough to let everything else go for a time. The end of the quote on that silent concrete says it best.

To them we have a solemn obligation.

Steve's cautious when he approaches, but open. He's alone, incognito with a ratty Brooklyn Dodgers cap pulled low and a thin gray hoodie nearly the same color as the memorial's walls. He doesn't have his shield, doesn't have a gun, and he stops a few steps behind and to the left of where his friend, his brother-in-arms, stands silent sentinel to thousands of stars emblazoned on the wall. To his own star.

"'Here we mark the price of freedom.'" Steve reads the words carved into the long lip of stone before the field of stars aloud, though softly and mostly to himself. He doesn't know how he feels about that. When he'd first seen the memorial, he'd been filled with an upswell of pride that he'd contributed to that, that he'd made a difference. After Hydra's resurgence, he's not sure they'd actually finished what they set out to do. He shakes his head and moves closer, coming to a stop beside Bucky, his left shoulder to his friend's right.

He has to be his friend still, somewhere in there. It's not just a gut feeling, it's in Steve's bones. James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is his best and closest friend and he's willing to bet his life on that here and now. "Hey Buck."

He's very still, almost as though he didn't hear Steve speak. But he had, he just didn't know how to respond. He hadn't planned, not really, he just knew he was waiting for Steve to find him, beyond that...he simply didn't know. There were a hundred different things he could say and he even opened his mouth to say one or two of them, but they didn't leave his lips.

"You took longer than I thought you would." He glanced over at the other man, the feeling of needing to fight him and the feeling of needing to protect him suddenly warring with each other just with that glance. He still didn't move.

"Don't you think it would've been wiser to bring the shield at least? What if I tried to kill you?"

At the other man's question Steve just smiles a little, but there's an undercurrent of relief under it, as if Bucky asking that question confirmed for Steve that he wouldn't. "I took a chance. And I thought you'd have skipped town after everything so I didn't start with D.C."

He lets his eyes float over the stars again for a moment and finally turns his head towards his friend - or who he hopes is his friend - spreading his hands from his sides to indicate his wardrobe change. "Besides, I bring the shield and everyone knows who I am. I'm trying to keeps us both incognito."

Still protecting Bucky, even after he'd nearly ripped Steve's head off over the Patomic. Still with that same vague impression that he's looking for Bucky's approval, that he did the right thing. He never feels like that around anyone else, not even Fury who had basically been his commander, but Bucky's different. Bucky knows what Steve came from, where he came from. A scrawny kid from Brooklyn who could barely throw a punch.

Or at least, he used to know.

"Why did you stay? Why'd you let me find you?" He has no illusions that if Bucky had wanted to vanish, he would have easily. It gives him hope that he hadn't.

There's a moment where the words 'you're hopeless' rang through his head, but they're tinged with amusement and exasperation, emotions that surely weren't his for how alien they felt, so he bit them back. Steve had taken a risk in coming here basically defenseless when death could have been waiting for him...and it had payed off. He had no intention of attacking the other man, despite what his 'mission-'addled brain urged.

"I stayed because I needed answers. I needed to think." He hadn't done that in so long it felt like trying to use a muscle that had atrophied in it's unused state. His eyes fell to one of the names on the wall, the one he'd come here to see. "In the museum...it talks about him there. I needed to know who James Buchanan Barnes was. I couldn't remember."

His expression turned lost as did his tone as he continued to stare at the etched stone. It was frustrating to not be able to think clearly when he knew he should be able to.

"I let you find me because...it was like reading a story I'd read before and some of the images that came with it were so detailed...but I can't piece it together."

He hesitated, unsure exactly how he was supposed to act or sound or look or anything; he was exposed and raw and it just made that static seem louder. He turned finally to look at Steve. "Who am I?"

Well, something of a risk anyway. Sam is all the way up on the other side of the Lincoln memorial, a little less than half a mile away, holding the captain's shield should he need it. Steve is trusting, but far from stupid, and while he truly believes that Bucky is in there he's aware the Winter Soldier is too.

But here, at this memorial, among the symbols of dead friends and allies, Steve is certain that he's in no danger. Especially not after a question like that.

Steve takes a slow breath, thinking of where to start. He could list where he was born, where he grew up, his siblings, his rank, his military record... but those are statistics and dry information. There's no feeling in them, and things like that don't always feel real even when you do remember them. He goes with something different. "You're a hero."

It's simple and he tries to let it sink in for a moment. "Not even just at war, even if you saved a lot of people and we fought a lot of Hydra, but even back home. You were always saving me, this skinny little kid from Brooklyn with everything to prove - I told you I didn't have anything but you saw right through me, you always did." He smiles, memory back in the various alleys of the big apple, Bucky always there to pull his stupid ass out of the fire. "You took care of me, Buck. Even when I didn't want you to, you were always looking out for me."

The light in his eyes fades a little, eyebrows drawing together. "I thought after they made me into Captain America I could return the favor, but even then you still..." He closes his eyes for a moment, seeing Bucky again take up his shield without a second thought and place himself a barrier between Steve and danger, just like always.

And it had gotten him killed. Or so Steve had thought. In fact, it had been worse.

"I'm sorry, Buck." His voice comes out thready and soft, a long standing pain woven through it.

'A hero.' That hardly seemed right. James Barnes was a hero, yes, but he wasn't, not with everything that made Winter Soldier still in him. He wanted to point that out, to say that couldn't be the right answer because nothing felt further from the truth, but that tone in the other man's voice stirred something in him he felt like he'd only seen in pictures.

It was some kind of protectiveness, like he needed to find and end whatever was causing that kind of pain, but while he could feel that need more sharply than he'd felt a lot of things recently, he didn't know how to act on it. Like he was trying to build a bridge and the instructions had been lost.

"What've you got to be sorry for?" That much, at least, he honestly didn't understand, not as Bucky or as the Winter Soldier or as whoever he was now.

"You went down protecting me." Still simple, still straight forward.

He feels enormously guilty for it even if it was war. Bucky had chosen to fight by his side, but Steve still feels he should have been able to do something. He's a super soldier, he's Captain America for pete's sake, and he let not only one of his men but his best friend go down.

"I thought you were dead and never..." He never looked. He went after Hydra with complete voracity, knowing in his heart it was in Bucky's name and there had been a change. Yes they were still bullies - still evil - and it was a just fight, but he'd lost a little piece - more than a little - of what he'd been protecting. He can't deny he'd wanted to make them pay. "I should have looked for you."

Maybe if he had, it wouldn't be the Winter Soldier standing next to him in the 21st century but Bucky Barnes celebrating V-day in the 20th.

"Do you remember any of that?"

He did, some things more than others, but there were flashes and what Steve was talking about was one of those flashes.

"A little. Yeah. I remember a train and picking up that shield. I remember being thrown back and then falling. I remember you..." Steve calling out for him--for Bucky--the look on the other man's face when they both realized he was losing his grip.

"It wasn't your fault. It was my--his decision. He chose to be there." And he'd choose it again. Maybe he'd make some changes where he didn't get in Steve's way or maybe where he made sure he died on the way down instead of leaving enough of himself to be found and used, but he wouldn't change the fact he'd fought side-by-side with his best friend, nor that he tried to protect him.

"You chose to be, I know. Doesn't stop me from feeling like I should have been able to do something." Steve digs his hands deeper in his pockets, cap casting shadows over his face and cutting it into angles and planes.

"What else do you remember?"

He dug his hands deeper in his pockets, slightly uncomfortable with the correction, but silent about it.

"I remember pain and Doctor Zola. I remember waking up with a new arm and how easy it was to crush the neck of the scientist who'd been working on it. I remember confusion and static and more pain and the faces of the thirty-something people I've killed over the last fifty years." And those were just the ones he'd been sent to kill, what about the ones he hadn't intended to murder but had anyway? The collateral.

But that wasn't everything.

"I remember...couch cushions on the floor and a key under a rock outside a door. I remember Becky..and I remember a punk kid who couldn't keep his nose clean." The way that last sentence had come out had sounded foreign to him, affection he didn't know he had leaking into his tone. But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, it slipped away leaving him uncomfortable and uncertain; like he'd tried to put on a jacket that didn't quite fit anymore.

"They're mostly just flashes, scenes of sounds and colors and snippets of feelings; some of it is more put together than other things, but it's all...jumbled."

That's it, that tone of voice and the little smirk when he says it, that's Bucky still in there and that's Steve's hope. And it gives him an idea. "Do you remember seeing Snow White?"

It's a stupid idea, but it's the only one he has.

"How Becky hid in your jacket at the part with the trees the first time we saw it? And how you asked me if I was gonna try and work for Disney if I finished art school?"

It's never going to work, but... His voice goes softer and he steps in closer.

"How we heckled the ending when your sister was with us but when we saw it again we both just got real quiet."

This is stupid and dangerous and Bucky might be in there but the Winter Soldier's more likely to strangle him.

"You know, the part where the prince kisses Snow White to wake her up...?"

It's time to wake up.

He didn't really remember any of it, but it sounded familiar anyway, the scene playing out like he'd read it and not like he'd lived it. But then he was aware that Steve was closer and he tensed slightly on instinct. What was he doing? What was the point of trying to remind him of that?

He was about to ask when a pair of lips found their way onto his own.

He went stock-still and there was a part of him that wanted to lash out and stop the cause of confusion and turmoil that flooded him, but a larger part welcomed the feeling.

Now he remembered: the movie, the first time they'd watched it and the second and how the second viewing had given him an idea on how to try something he'd been wanting to try for a long time without sounding like some kind of freak. He'd convinced Steve that they needed practice kissing like that or else how were girls ever going to want to go with them? So Bucky had started it, an awkward but soft kiss laid on Steve's lips that had turned into Steve kissing him back. Practice.

Slowly, Bucky kissed back.

And a few more memories surfaced, more from when they were children and played together--inseparable as long as they had anything to say about it. Children, teenagers, adults, he could remember always being there to fight for Steve, to kick the ass of whoever was the Punk Of The Week and he never once faulted Steve for that expect for what it did to the blond physically.

But then he'd have a reprimand, a snarky comment and a first aide kit there and ready to patch them both up. 'Don't cry, Stevie, I'll take care of you.'

Those other memories were still there: Winter Soldier and all he'd done, all that pain and anger and the ghosts that howled and raged in his head, but those soft lips on his dimmed them, made them quieter and easier to manage.

He kissed back until the need for air had them pulling apart again and his eyes found Steve's face, no one emotion winning out his expression. But then he's feeling rather than doing: he feels himself reach out for the taller man...his friend...and his arms find their way around a broad frame as his hands curl tightly into the materiel of his jacket. He feels that same material press against his cheek as he buries his face in Steve's shoulder. And he feels those ghosts go quieter still--not silent, they would never be that--but manageable. At least for now.

As far as Steve is concerned, the man he'd approached standing here in front of the soldiers stars was still Bucky Barnes, but in the moment where they kiss, in the next where Steve can feel hands tightening in his clothes, he feels more like Bucky. Even in pain or sadness, it's still Bucky trying to find solace in him and Steve's glad he took the chance. He can't believe it worked - True love's kiss? It makes his face turn pink at the very idea - but it did work and he's not going to question it.

Emotions choking him, Steve just bows his head to press his cheek into that long brown hair, one arm curling around the shorter man's waist and the other hand tangling in the aformentioned strands, loathe to let go. "It's okay, Buck. Everything's alright now.

I'll take care of you."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject