Bucky Barnes | Winter Soldier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hesaghost) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
makinglies2014-04-12 07:02 am
hesaghost) wrote in makinglies2014-04-12 07:02 am
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.
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.
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They've changed. They've both changed.
"Hey," he repeats. "It's me, Buck. You don't have to try so hard."
He stops on the curb, his motorcycle sitting there with his shield strapped to the handlebars, a silent sign from Sam that he's still watching. That Steve should still be careful.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. You can relax."
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But he didn't want to tell Steve that yet without it coming out wrong, so he didn't. He nodded and tried to relax a little more--though if he succeeded, it wasn't very apparent.
He gestured to the bike. "Guess I've got shotgun."
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Jaw clenching a bit, Steve swings himself onto the bike and waits for Bucky to climb on behind him. He's sure he doesn't have to explain the travel time to his friend but with all the emotions and thoughts running through his head, his mouth decides it needs to run too, maybe just to break up the tension. "It'll take awhile to get there, my apartment's in New York. You'll like it, I think. It's bigger."
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Instead, he climbed on behind Steve and hesitated only a second before wrapping his arms around the teller man's waist. Luckily, the trip made talking fairly difficult, so he didn't bother trying, choosing instead to watch as one city morphed into another with only small strips of nature to break them up.
At some point along the line, he could feel his eyes drooping a little and try as he might to resist, he found his forehead resting against Steve's back and his eyes drifting closed as he dozed, though his grip never once slackened.
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He moves to put a hand carefully over Bucky's, still tight around his stomach, but the glint of light off of metal gives him pause. He knew Bucky had a metal arm, how could he miss it when they'd fought? But this is his first time seeing it up close and not about to cave his face in. He examines the fingers, metal panels fitted together, putting him in mind of the back of a pill bug dipped in chrome. They're the right shape but that's it. Those fingers are cold, a reflection of what Hydra had turned Bucky into.
Attempted to turn Bucky into, his mind supplies stubbornly, and Steve shoves his thoughts away, brushing that hand with his in a gentle effort to wake his friend without startling him. "Hey, we're here."
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Quietly, he let go and dismounted, standing sort of awkwardly by the side for a moment before his eyes traveled to the building itself.
"Nice place. Seems a little big for one guy." But he wasn't really complaining. Really, some part of him kind of liked it and he didn't know why.
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The first floor is dark even when Steve clicks on the aging overhead lighting to reveal the expanse of empty concrete, spotted here and there with red brick supports. A line of heavy punching bags leans against a far window and across the way a steel stairwell winds up in a spiral to an unseen second floor.
The blond props the bike up near the door they'd come through then perches his hands on his waist, surveying the room. "The real apartment's upstairs." It's not defensive, but there's a small note the betrays Steve wanting to put his best foot forward to Bucky, maybe not impress him but at least get his approval.
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He moved to the stairs and carefully made his way up, his left hand grazing along the railing as he went. Once on the landing, he stopped and took in the apartment, a very small but not forced smile touching his face.
He waited until the other man was up there with him before finally passing his verdict.
"I like it."
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The kitchen has modern fixtures and an island in the middle, open to the living area and a curtained off nook made of bookshelves along the back wall houses a bed, made up all neatly with military precision. Some habits die hard. The living area has a couch and a bench under the gigantic window that takes up the opposite wall and overlooks the Hudson river. A few books and sketchbooks are scattered around across surfaces, coffee table and kitchen island alike, and though the lamps that Steve flick on as he moves into the space don't throw much light, they cast a homey glow over the quarters.
Bucky's assessment makes him smile even as he tries to hide it by moving to the kitchen. "Make yourself at home. Are you hungry?"
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He also couldn't fully remember what 'make yourself at home' meant, but he thought he had an idea from back when he had a home to relax in. The worn hat came off his head, allowing his long hair to fall around his face, and the jacket he'd had wound up folded up underneath it on one of the chairs. His arms felt exposed after being covered for so long, but he let the feeling go. His shoes, habitually, stayed on.
A thought occurred to him that ran in that same familiar yet alien vein some other thoughts from earlier ran, but he decided to try it out loud instead of ignore it and see how it felt.
"Are you going to make something or do places deliver to random warehouse apartments?" Inconclusive, but it didn't necessarily feel wrong so that was an improvement.
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It had been nice for a little while, being a nobody again and having what he'd been duped into believing was privacy, but after the Chitauri invasion it had been like the USO all over again. Steve Rogers, Captain America, National Hero. He feels like a museum exhibit. Hell, he is a museum exhibit.
So is Bucky.
A bit sobered, Steve pulls out a pan and some ingredients from the fridge and from cabinets. Rationing may have been long over and meat and other things readily available, but for his limited experience in the kitchen, Steve has stuck to that familiar. Spam hash it is.
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After a few minutes his nose caught the scent of whatever Steve was making and sent it to his brain where a memory lay waiting. "Spam hash? Really?" It made him give that sort-of smile again as he looked over at the younger man from where he stood.
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And doesn't require the microwave, which while Steve had been experimenting with the thing, he still hadn't managed to learn how long things went in for. 2 minutes can't be right.
"You can read anything you want, if you want." He stirs the mess in his pan for a minute, listening for Bucky rifling through his shelves of WWII historical accounts, art collections, and pulp fiction. It's a modest collection but clearly chosen with care, with small pockets of incongruous titles thrown in here and there where he'd gotten books as gifts. Most of those haven't been read. There are even a few DVDs interspersed, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Big Sleep, and a few Disney titles too, Snow White and Bambi bookending more recent films like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. He keeps meaning to get more but it's hard for him to sit through a whole 90 minutes. Steve finds himself restless more often than not.
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He turned back to the bookcase instead, eyes roaming the spines of the books. Nearly all of them meant nothing to him, so there wasn't really a strong desire to reach out for one, but the thought of maybe reading a few when he was more settled wasn't unappealing. More settled...that was a new concept. He never settled, yet that was clearly what Steve wanted of him. He still didn't know, it seemed nice enough...but there was still that part of him that was Winter Soldier.
His eyes trailed along the DVDs and caught on the familiar titles. There was a subtle snap in his head and memories rushed forward. The ones he'd had before from Snow White joined with ones from sneaking into Bambie, two boys looking for entertainment and willing to bend the rules to do it, but it wasn't just that. More movies watched with a sliver of a boy at his side, late nights watching the stars, reading together, playing together, sometimes with some other Barnes-child, sometimes not, but always the two of them. Inseparable.
His knees felt weak and he had to rush to sink onto the couch before they gave out. His elbows rested on his knees as he buried his eyes in his hands. There were too many rushing around, images and sounds that didn't stitch together but left him more patches to try and match up later. All because of a Disney movie. No, not just that, it was everything familiar and not familiar. He was relearning while still trying to move forward and learn at the same time and it was impossibly overwhelming to the point that, for just a second, he considered running. Maybe if he ran far enough and hard enough it would all just fall away behind him.
But he stayed still.
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He sets the plates down on the coffee table, then sets himself down on it too, across from the hunched soldier. "Bucky?"
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He's not even catching his words anymore, he doesn't bother to try, just lets them go. Once they've stopped, he looks up, that same lost look back on his face. "Tell me what to do." 'Give me orders.' What was a soldier without orders? He was a soldier, wasn't he? If not, then what was he supposed to be?
"How can I be no one and nothing and still be here?" The question comes out simple, idle like a curiosity, like it held no weight. In fact, it held so much weight he didn't know what to do with it, it was the one question he couldn't answer and couldn't set aside because, without it, what was the point in continuing to try?
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But that question, that little question that he says with no emotion whatsoever after a crack in his composure. The deadpan tone is made all the more jarring for the suddenness with which Bucky fell back into it. This was never how the Bucky Steve remembers was. He was wry, sarcastic, overworked, stony, sometimes tender, protective, funny... frightened. The whole gamut, but never this. Never just... nothing. As if he'd been talking about someone else. As if thinking of himself as 'no one and nothing' doesn't faze him at all.
It makes Steve want to shake him hard, even punch him, as if that would help any damn thing. It's a reaction he'd been having periodically anyway, even before all this Hydra stuff came back up. Certain things - stupid things, far less frustrating and important than this - would make him irrational or shaky. Not being able to get the touch screen on his sleek little S.H.I.E.L.D. issued phone to respond how he wanted, feeling behind just from the sheer breadth of information he still had to catch up on, wanting to talk about world events thirty or more years too late. Milk being over two dollars. The Dodgers gone from Brooklyn.
Nearly all his friends, colleagues, acquaintances dead or dying of old age. That one at least made sense to be frustrated over.
But none of that helps Bucky. Even if he's frustrating it's not his fault and all these feelings do for Steve is make him hurt, and make him angry but mostly just make him guilty. It's not Bucky's fault, but it is Steve's. Steve who failed to protect his best friend, the person most important to him, who's now sitting and wondering if he even is a person in the true meaning of the word.
He'd called him Stevie.
"You're not no one," Steve's voice is strained under the weight of all his guilt and anger and whatever else he can't quite name, but he has to push through it. For Bucky's sake he has to push through it. "You're Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, and that'll mean whatever you decide it means."
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Because he knew Steve and his determination and his sincerity and his strength and that was there behind the words, so if he was James Buchanan Barnes in title, then he could take some time to figure out the definition. It was a start.
"Okay." He nodded and looked away, his eyes landing on the food that he'd forgotten about. He almost smiled. "I'm starving, let's just eat something."
He hesitated a moment, then pulled away and stood to go back to the bookcase where he retrieved a DVD and offered it to Steve. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves seemed incongruous with the mood and everything going on in his head, but maybe that's what they needed right now. Something else.
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And then it registers what movie this is. And maybe why Bucky had chosen it.
Only that can't be why. He doesn't remember, does he? Something like that Bucky would have told him he remembered...
Stop getting bent out of shape, Rogers. You already kissed him at the memorial, he admonishes himself. Steve had mentioned the movie himself, so that must be why...
Well. Maybe it would shake something loose. Steve's just worried about what that might be, and what Bucky's reaction will be to it. It's been 70 years and the world has changed. The definition of what they had, what they were, has changed. Or maybe he just has a name for it now.
But he can't push. That would be the worst thing, taking advantage, even if it's not intentional. If that's not something they have anymore then so be it, as long as it's what Bucky wants.
Steve sits on the couch next to his friend, leaving some room between them, and hits play. He picks up his plate and picks at it as the credits start to roll, eyes trained on his meal.
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He didn't know what was going through Steve's head, but he did hope watching the film again would give him a few more memories, something more expanded than the few he'd gotten before. As much as he wanted to remember everything, he also wanted it all to tie together again.
He was quiet as he watched, the story itself was fanciful and essentially pointless, but he found himself feeling something for it anyway, a warmth that made him forgive the fact it was pointless.
He didn't speak up until the ending screen had shown with the crescendo of music dying out with stylized 'The End.' There had been a little bit of an expansion, it wasn't anything necessarily new, but it was a new emotion, more feeling attached to the memories that had strengthened when they'd been vague and weak before. "I don't know why you agreed to 'practice' with me. It was kind of a flimsy suggestion."
Flimsy was an interesting word choice, why did he think that? Flimsy for what it was actually covering, for the real reason he'd suggested it. That made sense. What was that emotion though? He couldn't remember how it felt.
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But at the same time, he hadn't regretted a second of it. In fact, he'd wanted to continue their 'practice' almost immediately.
"You didn't answer my question." It had been more of a statement, but now it was a question; maybe if he knew why Steve had gone along with it, he could remember why he'd suggested it to begin with.
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He has to change the subject. He can't risk putting the idea in his head and Bucky regretting it later, no matter how lonely he is. "It's good you're remembering things though. Do you remember anything else?"
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"A little bit more about those times we watched the movie, they're more solid now." Like actual memories instead of stories.
He stayed sitting where he was, tone turning vaguely thoughtful, like whatever controlled his tone was rusty and still needed to warm up to produce the full effect. That probably wasn't too far off from the truth. "Mostly, what I keep remembering are things about you. Flashes of things we did, things you like..." Times when he'd stand there, hovering over the smaller boy as Steve forced his body to find breath, Bucky wishing desperately he could just share his own so that he wouldn't have to wonder if Steve was about to fall over dead.
That memory hurt and it almost made him flinch back from even trying to find others. But it probably wasn't the only one that would feel like that, if he ran now, he'd never find them again. "I remember you being sick and I think...I think I was...scared. For you." He was grasping at a smokey memory whose tendrils kept slipping away. Every time he thought he could feel it, it became just a picture instead of an event.
He shook his head. The Steve here with him now wasn't sick, though, he didn't need that fear anymore. In fact, he could vaguely remember a certain kind of gratitude for that fact, but it was mixed and dunked in other, stronger emotions so he didn't try following that thread just yet. "I'm not making sense."
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And after, the hole in the pit of his stomach when he'd heard the 107th were MIA. Running off to save them, to save Bucky, without orders. The fear they'd done something to him, the fear that too many things had changed since Steve had become Captain America, the fear that even like that he couldn't protect Bucky, couldn't protect who was really important.
None of it unfounded.
"And the rest of it'll make sense eventually." It has to.
Steve raises his head from having put the dishes in the sink, meeting Bucky's eyes for the first time in a few hours. "You look like hell, Buck. Why don't you take a shower and get some sleep. There's spare sweats in the bedroom."
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