(no subject)

[warcode]

[ He falls.

Not for the first or last time, but for once it is his choice to let go of the metal girder and drop, debris falling past him, the cold waters closing over his head like a nightmare. He pushes aside the things in his head that start screaming (not the water, not the cold, please no catch me stop me) and concentrates on his target, on his mission.

He pulls Rogers from the water. The man is still alive, somehow, even with the blood soaking his uniform (he knows that uniform) and he swallows hard when his hands spread automatically over the wet fabric, applying pressure (he has done this before, seen these colors underneath his fingers), and Rogers groans and curls towards him, like he knows. Like he trusts.

There is a protocol for situations like these (even though there are no situations like this, not for this target): he is to disappear, communicate his location and wait for extraction. His handlers will always come for him. He is not safe to leave at loose ends.

Hydra does not leave loose ends. Hydra does not take prisoners, though they might make an exception for a man such as this-- but his commander had asked for a confirmation of death. He has never failed to deliver one.

His left shoulder tenses and he hears the quiet screech of abused gears. He is malfunctioning. There are warm tracks of water running down his cheeks that are not from the Potomac and he can hear his own breathing, loud and wet and choked. He is crying, apparently. Or at least his body is crying, reacting to some stimuli he doesn't understand.

He closes his eyes and counts in Russian while Rogers breathes under his hands.

Twelve hours later they are in an old Hydra safehouse, a basement beneath an abandoned store front in a rough neighborhood where no one cares who walks down the street, still well stocked but hopefully overlooked in all the chaos. There are supplies enough there to treat bullet wounds and lacerations and dislocated shoulders. He is not a gifted field medic but he does not need to be, with his enhancements, and Rogers is apparently the same way, requiring only rest and time and a few IV bags to recover from injuries that would have killed an ordinary human.

He does not contact Hydra. News above ground indicates chaos and a broken chain of command, conflicting reports, and he is not at full capacity. He sits in a chair next to the only bed and works carefully on his damaged arm, patching it as best he can, listening for any change in Rogers' breathing. ]

Comments

[icedcap]

People talk about their lives flashing before their eyes at moments of near or certain death, but it's not a phenomenon he's ever experienced for himself. His life, such that it is, is a patchwork of what-ifs. Possibilities and promises, unrealized and broken, like film-clips littering a darkroom floor.

How do you live for nothing? He hasn't worked that one out yet. Isn't sure he wants to. SHIELD meant something once, now it stands for one more betrayal in the wake of so many more. How do you live for nothing? Same way you die for it, he supposes. Empty. And alone.

He doesn't remember falling, the water didn't take his breath away when he hit it. He's been in shock before. The serum compensates, but this time of all times he doesn't want it to. He doesn't want to die, but he's sure done living. Because it's not living, not here, not in this time. Not when so many things have changed, and so many of the things he fought for are meaningless, anachronistic footnotes to that Great War.

It's Natasha's voice that brings him back, he feels a pressure on his arm and her words in his ear, pod'yom, kapitan-- and between one heartbeat and the next he is perfectly aware. Instinct says, underground, one enemy, but it stutters over the word, and falters when he realizes who's next to him. Who's always been next to him, a solid, breathing presence or a ghost. His breath catches in his throat as he searches those eyes for any sign of recognition. He's not bound. Not tied. He turns his head, though his attention stays on Bucky, but can hear no other heartbeats besides theirs alone. There's a fine layer of dust over everything stocked in the corners and by his estimation no one else has been here in quite some time.

There's an IV in his arm, and dressings bound around the worst of his wounds. Moving, breathing hurts, but the pain is nothing. He barely feels it. They're here, and Bucky brought them.

He hasn't prayed in a while. God doesn't seem to listen much these days, but Steve prays that this isn't just one more lie. He doesn't think he could take it and remain sane.

The seconds tick by. He's always had an acute sense of time. He counts them all. They may be the last moments he has on this Earth, and to spend them with a friend-- and not any friend, but the one who above all others swore to be with him to the end of the line--

He smiles, just a little. The ghost of an expression that was brighter, once, and his brow creases and there's a pressure at the back of his throat he recognizes, but he isn't going to cry. "Bucky."

There are a million things he could say, but it boils down to that. Just his name. It doesn't matter that he's been a weapon for Steve's greatest enemies. He's alive. He's alive. The rest can be fixed. But to have something back from that time, something he missed and treasured so desperately... that makes it all worth it, somehow.

[warcode]

Rogers wakes up, and he pauses in working on his arm, dark eyes shifting over to him slowly instead of predator-fast, as if he's hesitant to look for some reason. His expression is passably neutral as he dutifully catalogs reactions (breathing well, no signs of disorientation or aggressive impulse) until Rogers says that name again, and a stab of pain lances through his temples.

He flinches. In another man it would have been full body; for the Winter Soldier it's merely a flicker of hurt and confusion across his face, looking aside too quickly.

He settles himself with an effort. The gears in his arm whir audibly as his fingers twitch.

"State your name," he orders quietly after a moment, forcing himself to look back at Rogers' face to check his pupils.

[icedcap]

He inhales, perhaps a little too sharply. It's progress, he supposes. Bucky's not calling him a mission. "Steven Grant Rogers, Captain. 0-462362 T42 43." That's the soldier's answer. The POW's. He says it quietly, and then continues. "I was born July 4th, 1918, in Brooklyn."

[warcode]

There's not even a flicker of response on his face. He doesn't ask further questions, instead standing up from his folding chair, thin tanktop not covering the scars and bruises he's collected and in some places singed from his work on his arm, and moves mechanically to check Steve's injuries. He doesn't appear armed (though he is) and there are no visible weapons within easy reach. He may have enough confidence in his ability to subdue Steve to leave him unbound, but he's also not taking chances.

Sitting on a desk across the room, however, is Steve's shield.

[icedcap]

Steve goes very, very still as Bucky checks the dressings. He's not the type you save, he's the type you stop. But Steve's too tired to play that game. Would he fight? If he had to?

He stares at the man above him as if studying all the nuances of a painting thought lost, and has no answer.

"We met when we were children," he says, when the silence is less like knives. "You protected me. My whole life. That's who you were. What you did. I wasn't much before the serum, Buck-- but I never walked away from a fight. And you were always there to pick me up, and patch my wounds." Like now. He doesn't say it, but his eyes track the motion of Bucky's hands. "And you called me all kinds of words for it, but I knew, I always knew you had my back." He's babbling. If he were anyone else, maybe he could get away with blaming it on the pain, but he isn't anyone else and he doesn't even try. He's just a man who misses his best friend.

"I still trust that," he says softly. "I still trust you."

[warcode]

If Steve is watching closely, then, he'll see the exact moment when his hands falter, the steel one freezing in place and the flesh one trembling.

(I'm with you til the end of the line.)

He cuts over the top of Steve's last word as if he can't bear to hear it said, voice harsh.

"Does your physiology require special medical attention?"

[icedcap]

Of course he sees it. He's trying to remember everything he can about this man, to assuage some decades-old terror that he's going to lose him again when he's only just found him. The slight tremor hits him worse than any blow Bucky managed during their fight, but he doesn't look away.

"No," he says. "How's your arm?" It's not an apology for dislocating it. He'd do it again if he had to. But he can be sorry for the pain it caused.

[warcode]

That earns a wary look, as if he's not sure why Rogers would ask.

"Functional." He flexes the steel arm slightly, apparently believing that's the one being asked about-- because of course that's the one the scientists always ask him about, how it performed and whether he managed to utilize it properly, like the arm is a completely autonomous weapon and he its inconvenient pack horse.

[icedcap]

He realizes he'd phrased it wrong before Bucky even answers. The arm is an asset. A well-maintained one, given how quickly it was repaired between one meeting and the next. Of course it's the one a brainwashed supersoldier would think of first, and for a moment everything in him aches. He lets it. An indulgence. One he won't be able to afford again.

"No, Buck. The other one. I dislocated it. Did you get it back in all right?"

[warcode]

Wary look x4. He draws back instead of answering, edging that shoulder out of Steve's line of sight like he might reach for it.

Injuries assessed, there is no practical reason for him to stay near Rogers or continue a conversation. He goes back to his chair and the little surgical tray set up there, covered equally in bloody surgical tools and mechanical equipment and sits down with an air of finality, picking up the soldering iron to get back to work.

[icedcap]

And Steve... watches him, with tired eyes. Drags his attention away from Bucky briefly to assess his own injuries. Nothing fatal. He reaches over and pushes the thumbwheel all the way to the top of the clamp, and then eases the IV out of his arm, hanging it up neatly afterwards. He moves slowly, halfly because he knows Bucky will be watching him, expecting a fight, and halfly because it's hard to stand in a way he's almost unfamiliar with these days. Almost.

But he swings his legs over to the side of his bed, back to Bucky just in case he has to grimace with pain as he eases himself onto his feet, and he does stand. He's nearly naked, which... doesn't bother him as much as it might were this anyone but Bucky. They've seen each other naked plenty of times before, from the time they were children that Bucky's mother shucked into the same bathtub onward.

Still.

"Do you--" he pauses. Clears his throat. "Have anything I can wear?"

[warcode]

He does watch, stilling his own work to do so. Part of it is clinical threat assessment but another part is some tiny flare of curiosity. He's never fought someone like him before.

He waits until Rogers is looking back at him before jerking his head minutely at a cabinet in the corner. There are nondescript civilian clothes inside, white and gray shirts and khakis, socks and boxers, and some of them might even fit Steve.

There's also a tiny bathroom just past the cabinet with the door missing. The shower has a curtain for some privacy but it's all clearly been set up so that a captor could easily keep an eye on a prisoner.

The soldering iron starts up again, but he keeps a wary eye on Rogers anyway.

[icedcap]

"Thank you." He doesn't have to say it, but he does. And then he pads over to the indicated area, selects a handful of clothing that he estimates he can manage with, and ducks into the bathroom. He wants to shower, but the dressings should stay in place a while longer, and he eschews the idea. Cleans himself up instead, washes his hands, stares at the man in the splintered mirror. He's got two days' growth of non-regulation stubble, and he barely recognizes his own eyes. He considers looking or asking for a razor, but Bucky doesn't look like he's seen one in decades. What could a man like them do with one? He doesn't want to dwell on it too deeply.

He comes back dressed, and not a move he makes belies the injuries he's suffered. The shield is nearby, a part of him in so many ways, but he doesn't even try to pick it up. It sank to the bottom of the Potomac, there's only so many ways it could have been retrieved. He skims his fingers across the knuckles of his opposite hand, and then he sinks down onto his haunches in front of where Bucky's working. He knows he has to be gentle. Bucky's a veteran of more than just war. "Can I help? With that?" He nods to the arm.

[warcode]

The automatic response ought to be 'no.' The arm is HYDRA and classified to boot, there are only certain techs and scientists with clearance to open up the paneling and look inside.

"Why?" he asks instead, every muscle tensed in case Rogers made a grab for the iron or any of the other tools to use as weapons.

[icedcap]

His breath hitches, and his brows draw down, as he tries to smile to cover up entirely too many feelings. "You patched me up," he says, reaching up to his shoulder. The stitchwork was neat and precise. Bucky used to darn his own socks in the war. It was a valuable skill back then.

Now, people just throw their clothing away when it gets ripped or torn. People make fun of Steve for continuing the tradition, but he sees no reason to waste fabric men and women would have killed for less than a century ago. Men used to keep their parachutes and send them back home to their girlfriends, in the hopes they could turn the silk into a wedding gown.

"I'd like to return the favour."

[warcode]

"That isn't why."

The confusion drops off his face like a switch had been pressed, his voice abruptly flat and cold and as empty as his eyes. He can't say he's unfamiliar with targets trying to appeal to his better nature, his humanity, because people will say and do anything in the moments before death, but it's never sparked a physical reaction in him before and he can only take that as an attack. Something to defend himself from.

This man keeps looking at him like the very sight of his face causes pain, like every word he says or move he makes is ...wrong, somehow, a disappointment. A failed test. He doesn't know what to do with that, but he knows he doesn't like it.

[icedcap]

He says nothing. He could say a thousand things, refute the point or strengthen it, but he does neither. Instead, he stands, removing himself from Bucky's immediate space. He wants to help, and won't stop trying, but he knows when not to push. Especially when so many others have, and he's... worried, that Bucky might be near to his breaking point.

"Well, you know where I am if you change your mind." He circles around, back to the hospital bed, but he's loathe to get back into it, and there are no other chairs. His fingers curl across the dressing over the wound just below his sternum, and he calculates how much physical activity he could manage before he'd tear it open again. Lucky, that it went straight through, even if he has suspicions about why his thigh's healing up so well. The slug was pulled out.

Curiously, "Am I a prisoner?"

[warcode]

The tension eases out of his shoulders when Rogers moves away, although he never actually moves a muscle, still holding the iron to the open circuitry of his arm. It's not ideal to fight with the inner workings exposed like this, but that consideration won't stop him from doing so.

He watches Rogers for a full minute before dropping his gaze back to his work, apparently satisfied with him backing off. The question, though, makes his brow knit briefly.

"...yes."

Except HYDRA doesn't take prisoners. Neither does an assassin. And he's already violated protocol by staying so long underground without contact, without allowing his handlers to take the situation over and make the necessary decisions.

[icedcap]

Steve makes a quiet, enlightened sort of noise, almost an oh, and sits himself on the edge of the hospital bed. This time, he's facing Bucky, and has his hands braced on his knees. "All right. Is there anything you'd like to ask me?"

Because volunteering for interrogation is definitely the best idea he's had since waking.

[warcode]

There's an even longer pause this time, and if it wasn't completely obvious before that he's never had to take a prisoner or lead an interrogation in his life, it would be now in the way he hesitates and tries to come up with a valid response.

(There are a thousand questions he wants to ask but he's not allowed, asking questions leads to the room and the chair and the sound of his own screams in his ears, he doesn't need to know, he doesn't need to know).

"Tell me about the man on the helicarrier. The one with wings."

He'd been given some intel about Fury, about Rogers himself, about the Black Widow and the people that were likely to stand in his way. The man with wings is an unknown variable, even if he hadn't seemed much of a physical threat, but he doesn't know who he is to Rogers.

[icedcap]

"We call him Falcon. He's a former member of the American military, specifically the air force. Anything more than that is classified. I'm sorry." And he is. Because although the Bucky he knows would sooner die than betray a brother-in-arms, the man he knew and the one before him now have different ideals. He wants to tell him everything, but some secrets don't belong to him.

[warcode]

"Why did he come with you? He's not SHIELD-- he wasn't assigned to you."

It's actually kind of a stupid question, he realizes as he hears it said aloud. An ex-soldier or even a random civilian might have chosen to accompany Rogers for any number of reasons, up to and including self-preservation or sheer utility.

[icedcap]

"Because all that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," Steve says quietly, looking away. He and Erskine had discussed that philosophy at length during one of their many late-night sessions. He could have said it more simply - that Sam, like him, doesn't appreciate bullies. But Hydra is evil, no matter the good intentions its members exposit. "He saw that Agent Romanov and I needed help to stop Hydra, and he stepped up. As did countless others in the Triskelion."

[warcode]

"He'll come looking for you."

It's said with a note of confirmation, as if Steve had answered that particular question. The soldering iron cuts off and he's snapping the paneling back in place on his arm, flexing the fingers to work out any kinks and all with an air of re-arming, readying himself for a newly acquired target.

[warcode]

[ SO THEN THERE WAS THAT TIME WHERE STEVE BROUGHT BUCKY HOME TO AVENGER'S TOWER for reasons that Steve still isn't even entirely sure about but it was either that and accepting Stark's asshole brand of help or live out of Motel 6's for the rest of his life, hoping to keep Bucky under their radar.

Bucky's only tentatively started to identify himself as Bucky, but he knows it makes Steve happy when he tries, so he gives that name in conversation with the Tower's other sometime denizens and doesn't flinch at all when Tony Stark gets up in his space, hmming and tsking over his arm and his shoulder and his spinal cord, half jealous half admiring like a five year old presented with another kid's much cooler toy. He immediately announces that he can make a better one.

Bucky decides cautiously that he likes the Tower. It's not SHIELD controlled, and neither are the people there. Nobody looks at him as though he's an object (especially not Stark, who treats objects like they're people) and even if they think of him as an enemy, or a compromised ally, it's because they understand that position far better than Steve ever will.

They also don't care that he wanders the hallways at all hours, investigating the space like a cat, sneaking in noiseless to watch someone make coffee or spar or sweep up broken glass for a few minutes before retreating. Sometimes, he runs into one of the others doing the same.

There are several empty 'guest' floors (floors, mind) not specifically catered to any individual that could be his permanently at any time, if he indicated any inclination, but Bucky doesn't settle in any of them, sleeping in one bed for a couple hours and then moving to another, not sure if he's fascinated by or uncomfortable with the idea of leaving a bed unmade, sheets wrinkled and tossed on, and coming back twenty minutes later to find it pristine and clean. JARVIS would leave it any way he wanted, he's been told, but he's not sure exactly what he wants so he doesn't give any instructions. He sleeps on the floor one night, curled up around a duffel bag full of unloaded guns and the next commandeers one of the zillion couches for a change of pace, and then spends one particularly tense forty-eight hour period holed up in Tony's garage/workshop, driven by his own conflicting and inexplicable instincts to seek concrete and gasoline and the whirr of machinery.

There's also an unspoken agreement, that when he can't sleep and doesn't want to spend another night on the roof watching the lights of the city he's welcome in Steve's room and Steve's bed, that the door will always be unlocked for him (or JARVIS will unlock it upon his approach). He knows by the way Steve looks at him, the way his muscles tense, that Steve would rather be as close to him as possible all the time, and sometimes that's what Bucky wants too, to cling to him and hide his face in the hollow of Steve's neck, let Steve translate his silences and make decisions for him and act as a buffer, a wall between him and the rest of the world.

He knows that isn't practical or healthy, even without Sam and his good intentions telling him so. Sometimes his instincts won't allow for closeness at all, every person in his periphery a target or an enemy or unknown variable and no weapons but his own hands, clenching and releasing and that horrible cold place in his mind calculating how hard he'd have to hit, what angle, to snap a supersoldier's neck. Sometimes it's all he can do to find a dark quiet corner and just fold in on himself and breath, counting in Russian, in German, in languages that he didn't know he knew, until he can trust himself to be a soldier instead of a weapon.

Tonight's not one of those nights. Tonight the inside of his head is vicious, pictures and disconnected flashbacks hitting him left and right, not letting him recover, and his arm is cold and heavy and his mind is telling him that it's a dead limb, alien and horrible and weighing him down, (it'll have to come off, soldier, before it rots through and takes you with it, don't struggle, don't struggle, it needs to come off) but his fingers are shaking too much to undo the attachments and seals properly and he only manages to yank it partially loose, dangling useless and horrifying like a corpse clinging to his back. It's not his arm. It's something they put on him, inside him, with their drills and their bone saws and their white lights splitting open his skull. It's not his arm. His arm is gone missing, someone had taken it, and he needs both hands to fire a gun, to cover his men, to jump for the opposite railing while the fire rages beneath him, he needs his arm back to keep both of them around Steve in the winters, the cold would kill him, skinny little chest rising and falling against his own, he needs both hands to hold onto him--

His shoulder drags wrong against the wall and he bites through his lip to keep down the cry, stumbling blind and barefoot to Steve's door at three in the morning, a route his body has memorized. The door slides open obligingly for him and then closes once he's through, the lock clicking softly, and he puts his back to it gratefully and shakes. ]