makinglies | Two ancient losers

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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.

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There's nothing much remarkable about the first floor space, other than how much space there was. Other than storage for his bike and working out, it didn't seem like the place was being used for much else. But then, Steve had always been a more simple guy with simple needs...at least that was what one twisted fragment of a memory combined with a feeling told him. It might be a big space, bigger than either of them had ever lived in, but it was still very Steve.

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."

Upstairs is more homey than downstairs. The second floor only covers a quarter of the building's space with the rest being open to the floor below down one side. Each wall has giant windows, yellowed with age higher up but replaced with modern safety glass where the light would be needed to see by. Like the floor below, there are no walls up here aside from those that make up the perimeter of the building and the little bathroom and so through the use of creatively placed furniture, Steve has divided up the cozy space into compartments.

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?"

"A bit." More like he was ravenous and would likely gulp down whatever Steve made in a heartbeat, but again that particular sentiment didn't escape. He wondered if he'd always been this way or if he'd been more open before. He couldn't fully remember.

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.

"I'm gonna make something, but places deliver anywhere nowadays. You don't even have to call most of them anymore, you can just order on the internet." He gestures in the general direction of a laptop on the modest coffee table. "'Course I don't get take out much. People tend to recognize me."

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.

Bucky shifted a moment then decided he'd rather move around a bit more than sit and wait for the food to be made. He wandered around to take in what little was left he hadn't already seen before stopping in front of one of the bookcases to look at what lined them.

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.

"Hey, I learned to cook in an army camp," he says by way of explanation, looking over at Bucky. "Besides, it's quick and easy and I remember you saying you hated it the least."

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.

He couldn't really argue with that, mostly because he didn't remember it. If Steve said he'd hated it the least of his options, he'd have to take his word on it. Besides, it was just food, it wasn't like he was used to fancy dishes.

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.

It's a quiet sort of breakdown and Steve doesn't even notice until he's turned the stove off and stepped into the threshold of the living room with two plates, but there's Bucky with his head in his hands and his shoulders hunched and tight and Steve has to swallow hard to keep the worry and guilt from choking him.

He sets the plates down on the coffee table, then sets himself down on it too, across from the hunched soldier. "Bucky?"

At first, it seems like he's not going to answer, but his voice makes it out to form quiet, rough, words. "It's all a mess. Just patches out of context, some of them don't even feel like anything and some of them...there's too much feeling. What if it never comes back together? What if I'm never the guy I should be, Stevie?" He's scared. After a world of orders and certainty and 'the asset' now everything was uncertainty and options and what if he chose the wrong ones somehow? There were no guidelines, no structure.

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?

"It will. You will." Mouth set in a hard line, Steve grabs both of Bucky's hands between his, metal and flesh alike. "We'll make it work and you'll get better. I promise, Buck."

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."

Maybe it was the determination in Steve's face or his tone of voice or the words themselves...or maybe it was just Steve, because there was a little blip of hope, a small and fragile light in a sea of nothing that nestled in his core. Steve had always been full of hope and determination. Maybe it was just the proximity, but he felt he remembered more about the man in front of him than the man he was, but for now, that was okay.

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.

At least starving is a feeling and that almost smile was enough for Steve to relax just a little. It didn't completely banish the swirling ache of anger in his chest, but it took the edge off at least. He gives a small smile of his own as he takes the DVD and goes about putting it on, though he takes a moment to scoot the hash-laden plate towards Bucky before getting to his feet.

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.

Bucky digs in after only a moment of taking in the sight and smell, half hoping it would trigger something, but nothing came forward. The taste was fine, he found he didn't have an opinion on it, of course he didn't exactly have a huge frame of reference.

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.

"What?" Steve's fork takes a tumble from his fingers, clinking on the edge of his plate, pirouetting off his knee, and disappearing into the crease between the cushions in a perfect swan dive. The bewildered captain doesn't even seem to realize, possibly because the sudden rush of heat to his face momentarily fried his brain. "You remember that?"

"For the most part. Some of it's still...sketchy, but I remember it happening. We were terrible." Two boys fumbling and trying to act like they knew what they were doing when really neither of them did, resulting in sloppy kisses and hesitant movements. He could remember he'd initiated it, but Steve had given as good as he got, at least until they were short of breath and Bucky had felt a little bad for letting it go on that long with Steve's asthma to consider.

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.

"You didn't ask a question." He knows what Bucky meant but Steve doesn't feel he can answer, not like this, so he splits hairs and stands to take their empty plates to the kitchen. It takes him an extra minute to retrieve his wayward fork.

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?"

There's a flash of something he recognizes from the few other times he'd felt it: annoyance, though he's not aware it appears on his face even as Steve stands up to take their dishes. Fine, the question wasn't open for answering, he'd leave it. For now. If it came to be that he couldn't come up with that wayward emotion on his own, then he'd get his answer.

"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."

Edited (Because half of it was written in another tab???) 2014-05-03 14:52 (UTC)

"Yeah y'are, at least some. It's pretty normal to be scared for people you're close to." He just means to say it generally but it comes out sympathetically. He knows intimately what that's like, the object of his own fears sitting on the couch trying to grasp at straws. The endless nights in basic when Steve would worry not if he was up to snuff - though that plagued him most of the time - but if Bucky was okay, if he would come back alive. It was a just fight but it was war. People die.

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."

There's that forced hope again, produced to keep them both going, no doubt. He'd take it, for now. Besides, he felt like hell, a shower would likely help him feel a little better.

He nodded and stood, sparing Steve a single glance before fishing for the sweats and vanishing into the bathroom. Once there, he stripped and left his old clothes in a pile, letting the water just run down him as he cranked up the temperature as high as he could stand it. Steam filled the air and made it thick, but he stayed under the spray as long as it took to scrub his skin as clean as possible.

With his hair finally cleaned and the rest of him rinsed, he finally shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, using the towel on his hair first before the rest of him, paying special attention to his left arm so no water was left on it. Even after he'd slipped the sweats on, he stayed in the steam-clouded room, using the towel to wipe the mirror clear of it's fog.

He looked at himself for a moment, hoping maybe he could remember something about himself if he looked long enough. All he got was the impression he was cut differently than he'd originally been, stronger than when he'd been normal, and that he needed to shave. Some rummaging in the bathroom produced a simple spare razor he used to cut away the scruff that had formed, thanks to muscle memory.

Face clean along with the rest of him, he felt different than before, a little lighter. That was a weird feeling when nothing had really changed.

The towel got hung and he nearly walked out, leaving the old clothes behind to be dealt with later, but something occurred to him that had him returning to the discarded jeans. From one of the pockets, he produced a vibrantly light blue band that he turned over in his hand a couple times before using it to tie back his long hair. Just the memory of how he'd received the first present he could remember was enough to put that warmth back in him for a few moments.

He emerged from the bathroom nearly an hour after he'd entered it and went in search of Steve.

Bucky took awhile in the bathroom, which gave Steve long enough to breathe and try and sort through everything. He's not sure what he'd been expecting, but the mélange of worry, pain, nostalgia, hope, and frustration wasn't it. Normally when he had to work things out he'd head downstairs and set up a punching bag to beat on, working out until he couldn't think too hard about it anymore over the ache of his muscles, but he can't push himself quite that far. His healing may be speedier than a normal person, but even the serum has its limits and what had happened at the Triskelion still had him sore even this long after.

Instead, Steve settles himself on the padded bench by the overlarge window and plunks a sketchbook in his lap, trying to zone out as his pencil marks up the paper with little cartoons as his mind came up with them. Circus animals on the Brooklyn bridge, what he remembers of Ebbets Field with players at the bases, his motorcycle, just mindless drawings as the rest of his mind tries to realign itself with what's happening.

Bucky's here, in his home, after a terrible ordeal. He has to take care of him, no matter what he'd done. He's still Bucky, still Steve's best friend and the blond owes him that much for keeping him safe and caring for him all those years before the serum. But even then, it's not about obligation. He'd do it in a heartbeat anyway, just because Bucky is who he is.

But is he really?

Because there's also the Winter Soldier. The ghostly assassin who even frightens Natasha. Hydra's 'asset' programmed for obedience and lacking in emotion or connection. A tool, a weapon, who'd almost killed him. Who might still if something went wrong because God knows Steve can't kill him first.

They'd sat side by side and watched a Disney movie. And Bucky had asked...

That was the most difficult thing to sort out for Steve. Sure the rest was hard, but not complicated on his end. He'd dedicated to helping Bucky recover, to be Bucky again. He has no illusions that it'll be exactly the same - it won't, he keeps telling himself logically that it won't - but he knows he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try so that's that.

It's what to tell him and how that trips up the captain. He can't push too hard or he might overwhelm Bucky into retreat but he doesn't want to be too gentle or they'll never get anywhere and why did he have to remember that so soon? Did it mean something? Or was it just the kiss at the memorial that had sparked it? And how could he have thought that was a good idea? Steve leaves off drawing for a moment and presses the bridge of his nose.

It had been complicated back then, let alone now with both of them being out of time and Bucky half out of his mind, the last thing he needs is for Steve to get all-- He's not sure what.

Steve had been so lost in thought that he completely missed the water shutting off and turned swiftly to look as the door opened and revealed his friend in a cloud of steam. He'd shaved and combed his hair back, most of it out of his face aside from two chestnut strands that framed his cheeks, making his face look a little gaunt but still better than before without the struggling beard. Now washed, his hair looks soft and Steve tries hard not to imagine what it would feel like between his fingers.

"Bucky." He says the name with a small smile. "You look much better. Did that help?"

Edited 2014-05-04 09:21 (UTC)

He nods and moves to take a seat on the couch again. "Yeah. I feel better." Not prefect, but he'd take it.

He looked over Steve, kind of at a loss with what to do with himself or what to say. It wasn't really for a lack of options as it was he didn't know which option to go with.

"What're you drawing?"

He had the feeling that he should go over and take a look himself, maybe peer over Steve's shoulder or even join him on the bench, like it was something he might have done before. He almost did it now, but he changed his mind, a little afraid to suddenly close that distance and put Steve on edge.

"Nothing." He sets the page aside, not hiding it as it ends up visible on the end of the bench, but more giving Bucky his undivided attention, or at least the biggest fragment of his currently scattered thoughts. "Just random stuff."

Silence stretches for a moment, Steve trying to come up with what to say or do but continually drawing blanks. Bucky does look better for the shower but there are still dark circles under his eyes and the myriad of small scars across his torso put worried wrinkles between blond brows. The puckered and harsh line of graft where metal meets Bucky's left shoulder strains the corners of Steve's mouth into a frown that he tries to fight, just curling the edges of his lips. He doesn't like imagining how it must have felt, what they must have done to him - made him do - in the name of Hydra.

Irrationally he wishes Zola was still alive so he could somehow make him pay with worse than he already had. Wrathful thoughts like that aren't common for Steve. In fact, he's only ever had them so strongly once before, during the war, after he'd thought he'd lost the man in front of him forever.

His eyes soften, but he has to remind himself that the verdict's still out on whether that's still the truth, especially now with Bucky looking more like himself.

So they stay for the moment, Steve seated at the window, tense and cautious but aching to not be, and Bucky unreadable to the blond's gaze. He used to be able to see what his friend was thinking with a glance but now... It's like forgetting a language you were once fluent in, now only able to draw on rudimentary words and phrases but not a deeper meaning. There are no clues of what he should be doing there.

Maybe the direct approach is best.

"What can I do, Buck? I want to help you."

He can feel Steve's eyes on him and watches as his face twists into a frown and a look he's not used to receiving; the only concern Hydra ever had was how much work they'd have to do to mend him. This was different and he didn't know how he felt about it yet.

He can see Steve is tense and cautious and while he'd like to think it's because he remembers what that looks like, he'd be willing to guess it had more to do with his training to watch for his opponent's moves than anything else. But maybe someday that could change, he was a little more hopeful than he'd been before. Not that that made answering Steve's question easy.

He looked away, giving it honest thought beyond the knee-jerk 'I don't know' response. "I don't know what the right answer is, but..you've been saying 'Buck' and 'Bucky' a lot...I think that helps. Like a reminder." Even thought he still felt like it was a nametag he'd been handed and not his actual title.

"And you evaded it last time, but I need to know you won't let me hurt you; I don't care if that means a bullet to the head or just knocking me out, but...I don't want to hurt you again." He didn't want to hurt any innocent person again, but certainly not the man he was beginning to recognize as someone incredibly important, someone worth more than his own survival.

"I'll tell you if I think of anything else." He was silent and waited expectantly for Steve's promise he'd stop...Bucky if he had to, but something from earlier by the memorial sparked up in his mind again, this time with a splash of color and words that seemed familiar and foreign at the same time. He decided to try them. "No, there's another thing: you're sitting there blaming yourself for this, but do us both a favor and work on not doing that."

Steve gives a laugh. There's little mirth in it; it's more a response to his supreme discomfort and confusion, a helpless sound as he tosses his head back to gaze at the evenly interspersed ceiling fans high above just for a moment. "I outrank you, Sergeant. You can't tell me what to do."

It's a terrible joke, one he's used on Bucky before in easier times. Well, maybe not easier, not that the war was easy by any means, but at least it was uncomplicated. Allies and Axis, black and white, us and them. It's taken Steve this long just to come to terms with that feeling, of wishing he was back in the thick of the allied campaign to take back France or ferreting out Hydra bases in Germany. He knew where he stood then.

And for Bucky... God, Steve doesn't even know if it's harder or easier for him not to have memories of a time past to hide in. It may hurt Steve to have lost that connection, but having gone through his own adjustments, still going through them, the blond doesn't wish them on his friend.

But that doesn't have anything to do with what Bucky asked of him, what Bucky's asking of him again, and he won't take a dodge this time. Steve can see it in his eyes, still shadowed by the weight of the Winter Soldier, but piercing and expectant too, with the flicker of some other life behind them. Something pleading, though Steve can't tell if he's imagining that or not.

His awkward laugh dies into nothing. The silence is deafening.

"I can't." It's simple. He's always had better luck keeping it simple. "It's not that I won't, it's that I can't, Bucky. You're my-" bother in arms most important person responsibility cross to bear ally partner soulmate "best friend. I couldn't live with myself."

He looks away, back out the window at the lights twinkling along the Hudson. "I'd do my best to stop you, but I can't do more than that. It'll have to be enough."

That second part, though. That second part has Steve's eyes mirroring Bucky's again, both gazes entirely too old for the youthful faces they're set in. "How is it not my fault? I should have caught you, I should have looked for you..."

It's not just words, he can see Steve means them; he honestly couldn't kill The Winter Soldier even if his own life depended on it. Something stirs in him at that thought, but he doesn't push the matter. It obviously wouldn't help anything and it might be a needless argument anyway.

He doesn't remember everything about what happened and maybe he never would just due to the fall itself, but he could remember a few key things and already had half an argument ready for just that response.

"You tried, I can remember that. It was a very long drop, I shouldn't have survived it, so of course you wouldn't have looked."

He'd already said it earlier, so he didn't bring up the fact it had been his choice anyway. He'd chosen to follow Steve and he'd chosen to pick up that shield and it had resulted in the fall.

"It's already happened, it can't be changed. All we can do is try to deal with it."

Edited 2014-05-07 07:30 (UTC)

Two ancient losers

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