Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

”The man on the bridge, who was he?” you ask, rubbing your good hand across your face. “I knew him.”

“No one important,” the Master says, and you frown at his blatant lie. You’ve been awake awhile now, and while he may think he has an honest face, he forgets how attentive to detail you are. You glance around at the others in the room – fourteen of them clad in full artillery gear, and two physicians – and estimate your chances of survival at less than zero percent if you argue with him further. So instead of asking any other questions, you sit in silence, allowing the low hum of the machinery around you to soothe your anxiety.

Which is, of course, when he backhands you like you’re nothing more than an animal. “I told you to report!” he barks, and you flinch. The words tumble from your mouth, and when you finish you wait for him to either hit you again or to push you to your knees and make you pay for your insolence in other ways.

The Master stares at you and you shudder, ducking your eyes down in a clear sign of subservience. After long moments, he reaches out to you, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You should be so proud of yourself,” he tells you, and cups your chin in his hand. “You do your work great justice and it’ll lead all people to enjoy a longstanding peace.”

You do not believe him, but you say nothing. He pets you – for there’s no other word for it – awhile longer, stroking your hair, and you bite your bottom lip instead of biting off his fingers in disgust. When he finishes, he says to the physicians, “Wipe him. Blank slate.”

You open your mouth and bite down on the mouth guard, because you know you’ve no other choice, and you wait for the fire in your brain to begin.

Chapter Text

The airship is going down, and Captain America keeps calling you a name you’ve never known. You’re not sure which is more disturbing. Either way, you’ve got a kill to finish before you can think of escaping your current predicament. “You’re my friend!” he cries out, and deflects another punch. “Bucky, please!”

“I’m not your friend!” you snarl. “And you’re my mission!”

He stops, suddenly, and momentum tangles the two of you together. You fall; his back hits the dome beneath you and the sound of the splintering glass rings in your ears. The cracks expand across the pane and you wonder why you’re not plummeting to earth yet. “Bucky, I know you don’t remember me,” he says, and you punch him out of spite. “And if this is what you gotta do, then do it, ‘cause I'm with you till the end of the line.”

You recoil as though you’ve been struck, whimpering and clutching your skull as your brain seizes from the words. Those words – you remember them, a promise, a pledge, a vow –you once gave them someone who mattered, who meant something to you. You stumble backwards, and you aren’t thinking, because in your haste to get away from him you’ve forgotten about the instability beneath your feet. The glass shatters and you lose your breath as you fall, curling up upon yourself in a humorous attempt to protect your head from the landing. It doesn’t matter whether or not you hit your head at eighty miles an hour in a freefall; the collision will kill you either way.

You never expect to hit water instead of rock. The impact shakes you to your core, and the first breath you take drags water into your lungs. You choke and thrash in an effort to find your footing, but cannot see which way is up. In a last attempt to survive, you go completely still and hope the buoyancy in your body will take you to the surface.

Between your arm and your gear, the water does nothing more than drag you further from the light.

Your ribs ache from being pinned underneath the metal framework of the airship (that he rescued you from, the traitorous voice in your head announces), your arm is in critical need of repair, and you are tired – more tired than you have ever been, desperate to escape the Master and all the Masters before him. So you stop struggling, stop hoping, and let the water work its own magic upon you, pulling you further and further away from everything that hurts. It feels like benediction, as the water cleanses the sweat from your face and the blood from your hands. There isn’t any honor in you anymore; why should there be life in you, either?

And as you give up, as you willingly accept your fate, two arms seize your waist and jerk you roughly to one side. You twist but the movement does you no good; before you can begin to fight, your head is above the waterline and you’re too busy sucking in huge gulps of air. Quietly, a voice asks, “Can you make it to the shoreline?”

You blink water out of your eyes; it’s him again, he who should’ve pushed you further under, not dragged you to the surface. “Why?” you ask him.

“I told you – ‘til the end of the line. Now, can you swim?”

You tilt your head to one side, studying him. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t react to you until you give him a sharp nod, once, and then he uses both arms to propel himself to the shore.

Your exit from the water is much less graceful, but effective. The two of you sprawl across the muddy edge of the Potomac, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him or thank him. Somehow he seems to understand your silence, because he keeps silent himself. Only when you force yourself to your feet does he speak. “What are you doing?”

You arch an eyebrow at him and he huffs out a laugh. “Don’t look at me that way. It never worked when we were kids, and it’s not gonna work now.”

You startle in surprise and he winces. “Sorry,” he says. “I see your face and remember all the things I know you’ve forgotten.”

You shrug your shoulders, unsure how else to respond. Normally, when you arch your eye and glare a person down, they don’t realize the look is pure bullshit because you’re confused instead of annoyed. Either this Captain America reads you better than any Master you’ve ever had, or…

“Thank you,” you murmur. “For bringing me to the surface.”

He nods and pushes himself to his feet. Instead of attacking, you take a step back and give him space. He acknowledges the action with a smile. “I won’t come any closer. Okay? I’m not going to force you to do anything or go anywhere.”

“You should be trying to kill me,” you say, and the unspoken question of why aren’t you trying to kill me hovers in the air unasked. “But, as you aren’t, it’s only fair I do the same.”

“Okay then. Look, I’m not a good liar, so I can’t say I’m going to let you go without a fight, Buck. I can’t find you again just to lose you.”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” you say. “Because I’m not staying here where others can find me.”

“Then let me help you.”

You laugh; it’s a short, ugly sound. “Help me? Why would I trust you to help me?”

“Best friend, remember? You jerk.”

When he points a finger at your chest, a single word slips from your tongue without you knowing how or why. “Punk.”

He freezes; his mouth drops open and his cheeks flush. He takes a step forward and says, “Bucky?”

If you had a heart, the way he says the name would break it. For he’s a soldier, a strategist and a killer, but he says that name like a love song. “I don’t… I don’t know why I said that,” you say, and rub your hand through your hair to get the water out of your eyes. You step back as he advances again. “I don’t know why I wanted to say that.”

“It’s okay, it’s… look, maybe it’s a suppressed memory or something. Come with me, let me help you, and we’ll figure it out together.”

Another step; you can’t keep retreating this way, because he’s going to figure out sooner than later that your ribs are broken and you can hardly stand on your own two feet. “Stop moving, damn it!” you swear, and pat yourself down frantically for a weapon. “Stay where you are!”

He stops moving at the same moment you pull a knife from your tac vest, and you smother a groan as you brandish it at him. “I said I wouldn’t kill you, but I don’t think you can save me. I’m not the friend you lost and I never will be.”

“Okay,” he replies. “Then I want you to do me a favor.”

You laugh, because, “What makes you think you have any right to ask favors of me?”

“I don’t,” he says. “But I want you to do me a favor anyway. If you decide that you want anything to do with me – if you decide that I could be a guy you could call friend – then I want you to let me be that guy.”

Your vision waivers and you choke out a laugh. “That’s all?”

“That’s all. Except I want you to forgive me, too.”

“Forgive you?”

“Forgive me. Because for once in my life, I’m going to fight dirty.”

You don’t have time to ask for more explanations, because he lunges at you, knocks the knife out of your hand, and puts you in a chokehold that has you on the ground. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, as the lack of oxygen has the tension fleeing from your body. “I’m sorry, Bucky, I can’t let you slip through my fingers ever again.”

You cannot respond as the lights fade out, but as you slide into darkness you swear you feel his lips brush lightly against your own.

Chapter Text

You return to consciousness in a blur of confusion and drugs; nothing hurts like it should, and you drift in and out of a hazy twilight sleep. A few times you open your mouth to speak, but you aren’t sure whether or not you’re dreaming because the faces that surround you are never familiar. You’re lost in your own body, don’t feel the sensation of pain (which you’re used to) or pleasure (which you secretly yearn for) and it makes you angry, so angry, because this is just one more time with someone else screwing your mind up and…

“His heart rate’s elevating to dangerous levels, sir,” a crisp, British accent cuts through the fog and your eyes open, focus on the ceiling above you. “Might I suggest calling for Captain Rogers?”

“Good idea, J,” a man responds. “Get Bruce and Cap in here before Barnes yanks the straps off the table. Barnes? Hey, Barnes. Quit fighting the fucking restraints, they’re for your own safety.”

“Wha…?”

A dark-haired man with a wide grin and a rough beard swims into view. “The name’s Stark. I know it doesn’t mean anything to you now, but it will at some point because I’m the shit. Steve – you know Steve, tall blond, giant muscles, great ass – Steve brought you here for your own safety. You’re a fucking mess, you know that? Stop fighting to get off the table before you fuck up all the work we had to do to fix you and your arm. And by the way – did those assholes at Hydra hate you or something, to give you such a pathetic piece of shit prosthesis? I mean, the thing doesn’t work half as well as the new one I’m building you.”

“Tony!”

Tony – Stark, you realize – stops chattering at you and grins. “Hey, Brucie! And Cap! Just bringing our new buddy up to date on a few things.”

“Please don’t,” Captain America responds, but smiles and pats him on the back. “I don’t think it’s fair to subject anyone to you.”

While the two of them continue to bicker, a second dark-haired man steps next to you and touches your side. You try to jerk away, even though you’re tightly bound, and it’s useless – but you squirm until he says, “Please hold still? I can’t tell if your ribs are healing when you move like that.”

You glare at him and he touches your arm. The metal one. And he doesn’t look remotely afraid of you, which is confusing as hell. “I’m Dr. Bruce Banner,” he says. “And I’m sorry for anything Tony said before we got here.”

“Hey!”

You snort a laugh before you can help yourself and then groan as it pulls your ribs. “Would you tell me where it hurts?” Banner asks. “I can do an X-ray later, but I’d prefer not to have to move you still until we’re sure you’d be comfortable.”

Comfortable? When has any torturer ever cared if you’ve been comfortable or not?

The uncertainty must be visible upon your face, because he says, “You’re among friends here, James. Neither Tony, Steve nor I intend you any harm.”

“James?”

“You’re James,” Captain America says, from your right. “And I’m Steve. Steve Rogers.”

“Oh, right. I’m James Buchanan Barnes,” you say, and roll your eyes. “Or so you told me while I was trapped under girders.”

“Sorry, Bucky. I had to try something to make you remember who you are. No better time than when you were a captive audience.”

You shake your head at the terrible pun. “But that’s not who I am. I don’t know any James. And I don’t know you. And no matter what you think, we’re not best friends.”

“Do you remember anything about him?” Stark asks.

“Yeah,” you reply, bitterly. “I remember I was supposed to kill him. It didn’t turn out too well.”

Steve looks at you like you just knifed his mother in front of him. It makes you uncomfortable; and then, the fact that he can make you uncomfortable makes you even more uncomfortable. How is it you’re willing to give this man some sort of allegiance without knowing who he is?

And why the hell does your brain think of him as ‘Steve’?

“How long have I been here?” you ask, trying to steer the conversation away from its current point. “And where the hell am I?”

“You’re in Stark Tower, in New York,” Banner replies. “You’ve been here just over four weeks.”

“Four weeks?” you repeat, stunned. “But how…?”

“Medically induced coma,” Stark explains. “Not only to give your body time to heal, but also to try to work out what psychopharmaceuticals the friendly folks at Hydra had you on.”

“Sci-what?”

“Drugs. We wanted to know what drugs they were pumping into you to keep you in a state of constant amnesia. Basically they had you on a wicked mix of Indopan, benzodiazepines, and LSD. Between that and the shock treatments and you’re lucky your brains aren’t more like scrambled eggs.”

You may never be able to eat eggs again.

“Jesus, Tony, a little compassion, please?” Banner snaps. He turns to you, and in a calmer tone, says, “Part of the reason we have you strapped down is because you’ve been detoxing at the same time as healing. The best hope we had was to sedate you so your body had time to repair the damage at the same time your higher brain functions came back online.”

“Did you just call me stupid?” you ask, because that’s the only part of the sentence that made any sense.

“Not at all. You’re exceptionally bright. But I’m talking more in regards to the higher functions including memory and neural analysis. For example, you may know fifty ways to dismantle a bomb… but do you know why you know how to dismantle a bomb to begin with?”

The awful part of the conversation is how honest Banner seems in his responses. The tiny part of you that holds onto hope clings to his words, while the rest of you fights against the idea of hope after all of this time. “Why would you spend time doing this for me? I’m your enemy.”

“That’s just bullshit,” Stark says. “Look, what you did under the control of someone else doesn’t reflect on you. That’s on them. You were manipulated, controlled, completely fucked up…”

“Yes, thank you, Tony,” Steve interrupts, before Stark’s tirade can heat up. “I think we all get the idea.”

You lay quietly for a moment, before you can get up the strength to ask, “What happens when you can’t keep me strapped to a table anymore?”

“Cognitive recalibration and reintegration,” Stark replies. Then he grins. “Basically, we make sure you aren’t going to go around killing people at random, and after that we show you what it’s like to be a real boy in the twenty-first century. Up for the challenge?”

“And what’s the catch?”

“Torture of the worst kind,” Stark continues, still smiling wickedly. “You’ll be subjected to Steve’s sad eyes and even sadder jokes on a constant basis.”

You surprise yourself by laughing, and then blink at the sheer tenderness in Steve’s gaze. This could – and probably will – go to hell faster than you can expect. But if they’re telling the truth, and gullible enough to put their faith in you, then at least you can use that to get loose. “All right,” you agree. “But no more of this ‘Bucky’ name. If I am to be my own person, then I will answer to this ‘James’, as you call me.”

“Didn’t they call you anything?” Steve asks, and hell – Stark wasn’t lying about the sad eyes. You glance away from him, and he says, “James?”

“They called me Soldier. It was what suited my Masters, and all I was required to be.”

“That kind of makes me sorry I wasn't around to help Cap kill every asshole in Washington,” Stark says. “You get better, and I promise you – no man will ever try to master you again while I’m around. Unless that’s a thing for you, because hey, I’ve got no right to judge another man’s kinks.”

“TONY!”

This time, Banner and Steve both yell. You almost end up re-breaking your rib from laughing so hard. And it just might be worth it.

Chapter Text

Your body heals faster than they expect; Steve calls it a side effect of the experimentation someone named Zola performed upon you. At some point, you become willing to take his word for it. It takes six weeks for them to unhook you from their machines and pronounce you fit to walk about the Tower. Or rather – fit to walk about one floor. It amazes you to see the environment around you; even though they lock the door from the outside, you still have more space to prowl than any of your previous Masters gave you.

And there are windows.

This is how Steve finds you one morning: your nose pressed against the window, some forty floors in the air, staring at the vast nothingness beyond your grasp. “So, the team’s decided to meet for breakfast on one of the common floors.”

You don’t respond; in some ways, it gives you a perverse thrill to make him actually ask you something before you speak. He continues with, “I thought it might be nice for you to meet the rest of the team today. My friends and colleagues who’ve had to put up with me talking about you for the last few weeks.”

“Are they more like Banner, or more like Stark?”

Tony, as you’ve taken to calling him in the privacy of your mind, is your favorite of the two men by far. His constant chatter and easy smiles amuse you; he’s also the one who offers you a Starkpad to ‘catch up on all the good shit you missed’. Between his help and Jarvis’, you’ve learned about a lot of the changes in the world outside. And you don’t particularly care if Tony monitors what you look at, since the Merchant of Death probably doesn’t have the moral high ground to stand upon.

“They’re a mix of personalities,” Steve says, breaking you from your musings. “Two of them you’ve met before, under different circumstances.”

You swear under your breath in Russian; the language something that obviously stuck with you no matter how many times Hydra made you forget who you were. “The woman. Natasha? And the man with wings.”

“His name’s Sam Wilson, and yes. They’re good people, B…James. And they want to get to know you.”

“And you think our history will be solved with breakfast?”

Steve scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “It’ll be a good start?”

You offer him a small smile. If nothing else, you have to give Steve credit for trying to make you feel like a person again. It’s been six weeks since the last time you remember your Master; six weeks of being allowed to ‘defrost’, to retain some semblance of yourself. You grab a t-shirt from the arm of the chair next to you and pull it over your head; and to hell with them if they don’t approve of the pajama pants you’re in. “Then let’s go to breakfast,” you say.

He beams at you and you turn your head, trying not to be charmed by his enthusiastic smile (you’re charmed anyway). “Enough of that,” you grumble, and follow him down the hallway toward the elevator. You stand as far away from him as possible as the elevator moves toward a different floor.

“I think it’ll be good for you to get out of your routine,” he says, breaking the sudden tension. “Not only meeting some other people, but I think Sam will really be able to help you.”

“By pushing me from a great height, as I did to him?” you ask, as the elevator doors slide open.

“That happened to me once, and it’s a sensation I never want to repeat,” Tony’s voice calls over to you. “There’ll be no pushing anyone out of windows in the Tower. Jarvis, make a note – this is a new house rule.”

“Of course, sir.”

If Tony is the epitome of blatant sarcasm, then Jarvis is the epitome of dry wit. You manage not to smile but it’s a long shot. You probably shouldn’t encourage either of them. Exiting the elevator and joining Stark in the main room, you ask, “Why would someone push you out a window?”

“I’m sure you read about it,” he replies. “Angry alien demigod with daddy issues, the whole invasion-take-over-the-world ploy, you know how it goes. On a high note, I think that was Cap’s first experience with shawarma.”

“Tony,” Steve says with a sigh, as you tentatively hold your fist out to Tony so he can bump it. The sigh lengthens. “Really? The first thing you pick up is the fist-bump?”

“He could do much worse,” Stark replies, and taps his knuckles to yours. “We could’ve let him hang out with Legolas.”

“Fuck off, Robocop,” a well-built blond says, dropping down from the ceiling tiles. He holds his fist out to you and you tilt your head to one side. “Oh, come on. If you’ll fist bump Stark, you can hit me up too. Especially considering we never know where Stark’s hands have been.”

For Steve’s sake (because he’s looking at you with those damn eyes again), you bump fists with, “Legolas?”

“Movie reference,” Banner speaks this time, drifting in from a side hallway. “James, this is Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye. Clint, this is James Barnes, the Winter Soldier.”

“Hey,” the other man says. You nod at him and yet take a step backwards, closer to the wall of the kitchen to better open up your sightlines.

Almost collectively, the men in the room step backwards. “Too many people?” Steve asks.

You shake your head no, but don’t move away from the wall. It’s really damn weird, the way they seem to pick up on your discomfort in the enclosed space of the Tower. It’s not like being in a laboratory with your Masters, where you were used to being surrounded and strapped down and…

“James,” Banner’s voice cuts through the fog in your brain. “Take a deep breath for me, James.”

You look up at him – and when had you fallen to your knees? – and take a deep breath as requested. “Another,” he asks.

You kneel there a moment or two more, breathing, until you feel strong enough to push yourself to your feet. “You don’t have to discuss it. But was there some sort of memory that was associated with the claustrophobia? That there were too many people crowding you?”

You nod, and he smiles at you. “Okay. That’s good. Actually, that’s really great. As long as you can keep holding onto past experiences, you’ll have better luck retaining information and potentially unlocking the memories you’re missing.”

“Damn,” Barton says. “After that I think it’s only fair we start eating. You look like you could use some fuel.”

Steve is the one who herds you into the kitchen, where the smells of food fill your nostrils and make your stomach rumble. You hang back away from the main table, watching them interact; it’s surprising, the way they laugh and jostle each other like friends. They’re so different, all of them lethal in their own way, and yet…

“You’d better sit down, or Steve and Hawk won’t leave anything to eat,” the man with wings says to you, from the opposite side of the table. “I haven’t met Thor yet, but I hear he puts them all to shame.”

“Shut it, man,” Barton says. “Those of us who actually have to work instead of wearing tech get hungry.”

“Oh, you want to talk tech, huh? What were those arrows I saw earlier?”

You take a seat next to Steve, silent, glad to observe the mayhem at the table instead of participating in it. Steve leans into you, making small comments from time-to-time, explaining the histories among the different people around the table. You nod as appropriate and eat the delicious food on your plate, until Steve drops a square pastry onto the plate in front of you. You look at him expectantly and he blushes. “Chocolate croissant. Trust me on this.”

You glance around the table and realize everyone’s staring at the two of you in the least subtle ways possible. Huffing out a breath, you pick it up and bite into it, expecting the worst. But flavor explodes across your tongue, sweet-dark-rich-sticky, and you maybe make a sound you haven’t made since the last time you got fucked. Steve grins as you take a second bite, and you aren’t able to stop the answering smile on your own face.

“I knew you’d like it,” he says. “You had such a sweet tooth when we were kids.”

You lower your gaze, still smiling. “Thanks.”

The moment hangs until it’s awkward; fortunately, Stark has no compulsions about ruining it. “So, after we’re done eating, how about we go find that new prototype I’ve built for your arm?”

You nod, and don’t bother to be civilized as you lick the last of the chocolate off of your non-metal thumb. “Okay.”

He clears his throat, and when you look at him, you realize he’s leering at you. “Steve, got any more croissants over there you can pass along?”

“Tony, please stop trying to scandalize Steve,” Banner says.

“But just look at him, with the chocolate and the finger-licking and…”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

They all stop talking and stare at you, and you shrug. “Stark. He doesn’t bother me with the flirting.”

“Ha!” Stark crows, victorious. He points a finger at you. “I knew you were going to be awesome! You are going to get the best toys someday. Lasers in your fingertips or something, missiles, guns…”

“Something shock proof?” you ask, and exchange glares with the red-haired woman down the table.

Stark pauses and then nods to himself. “Yes, yes, absolutely I could do that, work on re-routing the systems to… Are you done eating?”

You blink at the abrupt change of topic. “Yes?”

He leaps out of his chair, waving at you and heading to the elevator. “To the lab!”

You freeze, not comfortable about the idea of a laboratory, until Steve touches your arm. “Bruce and I will there too, in case he tries to do anything over the top. He’s a genius, no matter how much I want to strangle him sometimes. If he says he’s built you a new arm, then I promise you, you’ll love it.”

You slowly raise your metal arm to Steve’s face, and cover his eyes with it. “I’ll trust you only if you promise to stop looking at me like that,” you say, and though it’s teasing, you can feel the others around you tense like you’re going to choke him to death right there. “You promise to put that face away?”

He laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Promise, you jerk.”

You lower your hand and he’s still smiling, and you smile at him too. Something warm and fond loosens a little, and then it doesn’t matter because he’s leaning in and pressing his lips to the side of your face. “Come on. Let’s go see what Tony made.”

You follow him to the elevator, your heart beating triple time, and realize that just maybe you’d follow him anywhere.

Chapter Text

The four of you enter Tony’s lab together, and you’re overwhelmed by how huge it is; bright, well-lit, and disastrously messy. It no more looks like the cold, clinical place you last woke up from, with Master standing over you. And also? It’s loud as hell. “What is that?” you shout over the heavy bass.

“Noise!” Steve shouts, and laughs. “Tony calls it music, but I know he’s lying!”

The music cuts out, which starts Tony bitching until Jarvis says, “Sir. I believe it would be beneficial for Sergeant Barnes to not have his eardrums bleed before his procedure.”

“You’re a killjoy, Jarvis,” Tony says, but doesn’t turn the – music? – back on. “So you ready for this?”

You nod, and Banner gestures for you to sit on a table. He opens a drawer and removes a syringe, filling it with a clear, gelatinous fluid. “What’s that?”

“Numbing agent, mixed with a light sedative.”

“Why?”

You see the confusion in the doctor’s face as he says, “Because removing the prosthesis could cause you discomfort, and putting you into a light sleep will prevent that. You’ll still be fully aware of what’s going on during the procedure, but it will numb any potential pain.”

If these men are trying to trick you with kindness, then they’re all expert liars. Banner’s face is so sincere, so understanding that you’ve no desire to fight him when he gently slides the needle into your arm. “I would bet they never gave you anything when they adjusted your arm, did they? For the few times you remember?”

You shake your head no. His eyes harden, and for a moment flash green – but as soon as you think you see something, the moment’s passed. “From now on, if you decide to trust anyone enough to assist you with your arm, you ask for a light sedative. All right?”

You quirk a smile at him. “I don’t think you realize how few people I want touching me. Especially while I’m under a sedative.”

“Touché.”

You yawn; can’t help it. Whatever he gave you settles into your bloodstream, and he helps you lie down flat on the tabletop. “Okay, good. I wasn’t sure of the dosage with your enhancements, but it looks like I got it right. James, I’m going to count backwards now. Ten… nine… eight…”

~~~~

”Seven,” a voice says, and you brace yourself for the oncoming blow. Your ears ring as the crop strikes the side of your face, but you push yourself back to your feet and stare at the grey-haired man in front of you. You wipe the blood from your eye and he laughs. “My good little soldier. Another?”

“Please, sir,” you lie, and brace yourself for the pain. He swings the crop at you, this time catching you low on your stomach. You exhale sharply, but do not break. “Eight.”

He pushes you, and you stumble, the chains around your legs too short to do anything but hobble you. You catch yourself before you hit your head on the floor, but it’s no use: he holds you face down flat against the ground, his other hand slipping between your legs and fingers forcing themselves into your hole as you grit your teeth and take it…

~~~~

“Hey,” the voice says. “You gonna make me do all the work here?”

You’ve got one arm thrown over your face; the other (arm, a real arm, real skin) holds up your left leg, opening yourself shamelessly for Steve’s fingers. “You should do all the work, you punk,” you tease, and you gasp as he angles his fingers up inside you. “Oh, God. Do that again.”

Steve’s grinning and laughing; he leans over you, kisses your mouth, the hand not sloppy with Vaseline cupping your face and stroking over your nose, your eyes as he whispers, “I love you, Bucky.”

It doesn’t matter than he’s so much smaller than you are, this boy you’ve given your heart to. He’s so big on the inside, so determined, so honest. A real man of his word, and you know he’s going to be something amazing when you’re both older, because you love him and…

~~~~

“Again!” the red-headed man shouts at you, and you punch the woman in front of you, snapping her head back with your metal arm. “Hit her again!”

She’s not conscious anymore, and you’re glad for it; you’re so damn glad she can’t see the tears you won’t show as you carve her head in, beating her to death with your bare hands to get the man you’ve taken captive (her husband) to talk. She can’t hear him crying, but you can – a pulsing, ragged thing that makes you glad they’re going to wipe your brain again, because please, God, you don’t want to remember this, you are a murderer and a monster and it should be you with your brains being turned into paste, bits of skull and gristle sliding between the flexible joints in the prosthesis, and oh God, the smell…

~~~~

“Bucky!”

You turn in time for Steve to catch up to you, and your bodies slam together when he reaches your side. “Guess what? I got a job!”

“What? No way, not my Stevie…”

He’s grinning full out, says, “Yeah. And I got you something so we could celebrate!”

He digs into the pocket of his windbreaker and pulls out a chocolate bar. It’s huge; more than either of you should be able to afford, and you say, “Jeez, no… you didn’t have to do this, you can’t even eat it with your allergies…”

“I’ll only take a tiny bite,” he wheedles. “Come on, Buck. Please let’s share it? Over a game of checkers, please…?”

You blush and he bumps you with his hip. “I can see you giving in,” he teases, and you really wish you weren’t out in public because God, how you want to kiss him…

~~~~

You don’t recognize the voice screaming at first until you realize it’s yours. You’re strapped down, tiny wires all over your body, naked as the day you were born, and there is agony racing along your skin, burning up all the pieces of you and shadows of people moving past you. “I am James Buchanan Barnes!” you say, spitting blood at the person in front of you. “I am James Buchanan Barnes, and you will NOT make me a damned monster, you can’t, I won’t let you, I won’t, I…”

~~~~

You wake up screaming, swinging, and you connect with a body that groans and stumbles backwards. “I am James Buchanan Barnes!” you shout, lunging for the figure in front of you. “I am James Buchanan Barnes, and I won’t let you do this to me!”

But he isn’t holding you down, isn’t trying to hurt you, and is in fact wrapping arms around you to catch you and hold you as you shake apart, screaming, crying and sobbing.

“It’s okay,” he says, rocking you from side to side, hands in your hair holding you tightly. He forces your face up so he can look into your eyes. “James. Bucky. It’s all right, I’m right here, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to lay a finger on you. You’re safe here, you’re safe, I swear it, shhh, shhh… I’m right here, I’ve got you…”

The soft words and security in his touch help calm you, though your heart beats out of your chest and you can’t catch your breath. You stop fighting him and glance nervously around the room instead. Your gaze stops when you see Banner and Stark standing fifteen feet or so away, both keenly watching you but keeping their distance. “You’re okay,” Stark says, nothing but compassion in his normally sarcastic smile. “The sedative hit you a little harder than we thought, and we replaced your arm, but it may have triggered other things within your mind that we weren’t aware of.”

“M’safe?” you croak, voice nearly gone. “An’ I didn’t hurt anyone?”

They exchange looks and Steve tightens his hold. “You’re safe. And we’re all fine, James.”

“I remembered you,” you say, because everything’s a little too raw for discretion or sense. “You an’ Bucky. Best friends forever. First person Bucky fell in love with, but I’m not that guy anymore, Stevie. ‘M not.. not a good person, not a good man…”

You’re hiccupping sobs and he kisses your cheeks. “You let me be the judge of that,” he says. “Because you’re still my best friend, still my Bucky, and there’s no one else I would ever want like I want you. Okay?”

You wrap your arms around him, hang onto him for dear life, and nobody moves until you finally stop shaking. When you feel strong enough to let go, you say, “Sorry.”

It’s Banner who answers first. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that what I gave you would lock you in your memories, James. I didn’t take enough into account about your trauma and memory loss, and I promise we’ll fix the dosage so that never happens again. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” you say, even though you’re sitting half on top of Steve in a pile on the floor. “Yeah, I guess… guess it’s good that I started to remember?”

“Silver lining for every grey cloud,” Steve says, and kisses you under your ear. You shiver for a whole new reason. “Rainbows chasing the rain away.”

You sigh, hug him once, and untangle yourself from his grasp. You then look at your new arm with a sense of wonder and amazement. “That’s… that’s…”

“I told you Tony’s a brilliant engineer.”

The arm’s still metal, but it’s lighter than your old one, sleek-looking and without any embellishment. You don’t even think about it as you lift the fingers and make them curl in on themselves. “It feels like my right arm does,” you say, unable to keep the awe out of your voice. “Like a real arm.”

“That’s all this model is for,” Stark explains. “Nothing fancy, no hydraulics, no weapons. It’ll record all sensations the same way your right arm does until you’re ready for an upgrade.”

When you’re not a danger to yourself or others, you translate in your head. But it’s okay, because Stark’s right: you need time to figure out how to be a real person again. Hesitantly, you touch the metal fingers to Steve’s face and gasp when he turns his head to nip at them. “I can feel that!” you say, excitedly. “It’s… Tony, this is amazing.”

Stark blusters a moment, waves his hands and looks extremely uncomfortable. “It’s nothing, really, just…”

“No, Tony,” I repeat. “This is really fucking amazing. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Just get better, Barnes, and for God’s sake, get Steve out of here, I don’t need to know what Captain America looks like when he’s making cow eyes at a pretty face.”

“You’re a riot,” Steve replies.

You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s embarrassed and bright red. You stand up and offer Steve your hand – the real one. “Want to come play me a game of checkers?”

“Checkers? Get out of my lab, you damn antiques!”

Steve’s laughing, Banner and Stark… oh, hell, Bruce and Tony are in your corner, not abandoning you. You’ve got a newly functioning arm that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t pull at your shoulder, suits you. And maybe remembering some things hurt, but it doesn’t mean you don’t want to know the rest of who you were once.

To learn if maybe you could again become the kind of man Steve thinks you still are.

Chapter Text

He walks with you to your floor, follows you into your living area past the couches and chairs. You stand in front of the window to stare out at the city instead of looking at him. You can’t imagine what he heard, what you said while you were under the sedative’s hold. But Steve doesn’t leave you to brood; he comes to a stop next to you, stays closer to you than is probably acceptable but you like it, like the lack of space between your bodies. “Feels safe when you’re with me,” you admit in the silence.

“Feels like being home when you’re with me,” he responds, and the naked honesty in that statement takes you momentarily aback. “Since we’re being honest with each other.”

“I don’t know the last time I was honest with anyone.”

“Then that becomes a promise between us, doesn’t it?”

You cock your head to one side, confused. “What?”

“A promise between us. I promise you that I’ll never lie to you. Even if it’s something I don’t think you’ll like, I swear to you right here and now that I won’t ever keep things from you or lie to you.”

You’re frozen with indecision; part of your mind screams at you that he is your mission, do not trust anyone! and the other part says but this is Steve, Steve’s a good man, he wouldn’t ever hurt you.

What really makes the decision for you is that, while you stand there arguing with yourself, he watches you and doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t push you, doesn’t pressure you. He doesn’t touch you or try to sway you with meaningless babble. He waits until you can pull yourself together enough to say, “Deal.”

And then he kisses you.

It’s not passionate, battling teeth and tongues. It’s close-mouthed, a gentle pressure, then the feel of two strong arms around your waist hauling you closer to him. You cup his face and nibble on his soft bottom lip, worrying it between your teeth so that he lets out a soft sigh of pleasure. “I’ll be so good for you,” you promise, stroking a hand down his back to his the curve of his hip, the meat of his ass. “Whatever you want from me, Steve, it’s yours.”

He presses his forehead to yours and you can feel his warm breath on your face. You close your eyes when he nuzzles your nose with his, and then…

Then he releases you, steps away adjusting himself in his pants. “God, Bucky.”

You don’t protest the pet name, reach out for him but he shakes his head. “Too fast, too soon. I can’t… I can’t mix up sex with love and trust like this, it’s not who I am. I want you. So much it hurts. But I can’t do this.”

“But why not, if I want it too?”

“Because it can’t be just sex for me,” he says. “It can’t be whatever I want. It has to be us, together, in it together for the rest of our lives and you don’t even know me well enough to say yes with a clear head.”

“I know people,” you say, and cross your arms over your chest. You suddenly wish you were wearing something more substantial than pajama pants, to hide the swell of your erection. “I learn people quickly, and well – it’s part of staying alive as long as I have. And you, Steven Rogers, don’t have a dishonest bone in your body.”

“Well, maybe one,” he says, and blushes. “But I can’t think like that. I don’t want you to feel obligated…”

“Do I look fucking obligated?” you say, maybe a little more vehemently than you should. “Do I? Because honestly, I can’t tell you when anyone’s ever touched me kindly or when I wanted them to touch me, other than one memory of your face.”

He gives you the sad puppy eyes again, and says, “That’s exactly why we shouldn’t do this. Because I don’t think it’s fair for either of us to take such a big step when neither of us is ready for it.”

“Then why did you kiss me?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” he says, and hides his face with one hand. “I lost control of my sense, Buck. I’m sorry, I was just so damn glad you were willing to be honest with me…”

“You called me Bucky again,” you say, all sharp edges to inflict the most damage. You’re angry at his sudden change of heart, even though you know he’s right and doing so for good reasons. He cringes and you tack on, “But I remember Bucky now. Are you sure you want to sully his memory by continuing to call me the same? I am, after all, a trained killer and a damn whore.”

He looks at you like you slapped him, and then gets angry in return. “Really? You’re going to try to use that as a reason to push me away? Don’t be an idiot, Bucky. It’ll take a lot more than that to scare me off. I know what happened to you, and it’s not your fault. None of it. What if the serum that made me like this hadn’t worked? Do you think you could’ve killed me or hated me in return?”

“I don’t know! I don’t remember all of it!”

“That’s why we should wait, then!”

You’re both shouting at each other, and it’s Jarvis who says, “Sirs? Is everything all right?”

You’re both short of breath and glaring at each other. Finally you say, “Yes, thanks Jarvis. We’re just… I don’t even know. We’re just both damned angry at the way things are right now and yelling at each other instead.”

“I understand, Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis replies. “I’ll leave you to it, gentlemen.”

You keep staring at Steve but the interruption’s taken the anger out of you, and you think that might’ve been why Jarvis interrupted in the first place. “I’m scared,” you spit at him, frustrated. “I don’t know who I am or where I belong, and right now you’re the only thing I think I can depend upon. You want honesty? There it is. I’m really fucking scared, Steve, that maybe I’m beyond saving. Or that everything might just be too good to be real, and this is all some dream and when I wake up I’ll be back to being this nameless Winter Soldier and I won’t remember any of this!”

You take a step closer to him, and he doesn’t move. “And if this is nothing more than a dream, if this is the only good thing I get in my whole life, then you aren’t allowed to take it away from me. Do you get that? I haven’t been able to choose anything as long as I can remember. I’ve had guns in my face, and drugs in my body, and fire in my brain and all of those things make my choices for me. So please, let me choose you. I want this. I want it with all my heart…”

You don’t get to finish, because he’s got his mouth on yours again, and this. This is the passion you expected in the first kiss, the lust, the sheer want-need-have you waited for. He plunders your mouth and you let him, wrapping both your arms around his neck and opening your legs so he can fit between them.

And this is not the same small, skinny boy you remembered; Steve grabs you by the ass and hoists you like you weigh nothing, and you wrap your legs around him and hold on like a drowning man to a life preserver. He growls at you, shoves you up against the windows and kisses you again, and again, until you’re squirming against him for more friction where you need it most. When you finally get your cocks together, he thrusts against you, making you cry out in pleasure. “Steve!”

He moves, wrenches you away from the cool glass. “Where’s your bed?” he rumbles, voice low. “Where can I strip you down and kiss you everywhere?”

“Fuck, I’m good with the floor,” you say, and he chuckles into your throat. “Left hallway. Second door. Would this be easier if you put me down?”

He ignores the question, strides off to the second door of the hallway without even jostling you. When you reach your bed, he sets you down upon it and yanks his own shirt over his head. You quickly get with the program, shoving off your pajama pants and reaching for his.

Only for him to swat you away. “I want to make this good for you,” he says. “And if you touch me, I’m going to come in your hands.”

Another tiny flash of memory: Steve gets embarrassed about everything except when you’re in bed with him, and he becomes sexy like a pin-up dame. “Good,” you croak. “Want you to come all over me, mark me up. Want you to make me yours, Steve.”

He groans out your name, James, and it makes you fall all the more in love with him. “I don’t mind you calling me Bucky, just as long as you remember I’m not the same Bucky I used to be.”

“But you’re still here, and you’re still mine,” he says, and it’s your turn to blush a deep red. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”

You reach for him to show him your answer, and he moves over you, eating your pleasured sounds out of your mouth. Skin to skin is heavenly, and you love the way he’s bigger than you and stronger than you now, because it makes you feel so damn secure, and happy. You roll your hips up into him and he bites your earlobe, making you shudder. “Steve. C’mon, Steve, please, want you so much…”

“I don’t have anything,” he says, cursing softly. “To use, to make this easier… so right now, I’m going to touch you. Can I touch you?”

“Please!”

He strokes his cock once, twice, gathers the clear fluid up in his fingers and pushes them between your legs. “I haven’t been with anyone since I woke up in this century,” he says. “I couldn’t do it, couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t you ‘cause I was still too busy mourning you. Goddamn, Bucky, how glad I am to have you back. It doesn’t matter in what way.”

You whimper, bite your lip as he traces a finger around the opening to your body. “Let me touch you?”

“Please,” you say. You beg. “Please, touch me. Haven’t wanted anyone’s touch since you.”

One thick finger fills you and it’s better than any cock you know. Because it’s Steve, who loves you. Steve, who you want to be a better man for. “Steve. Steve. Oh my God, please, a little more, I need it. I want it.”

“Don’t want to hurt you…”

“Just… just the tip of your dick. Please. Not so much, just a little, please.”

“Bucky?”

“I want to feel you in me.”

He groans, shifts so that he’s on his knees between your thighs and hovering over you. “Like this?”

You lift your right leg and hold yourself open with your right hand, just like in the dream. “Like that,” you reply.

Your mouths meet again, and he guides himself forward so that the soft petal head of his cock touches the tender wrinkle of your hole. He presses against you and you arch under him, taking him in faster than he’d expected. He hisses out a breath. “Slow,” he says. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

“Won’t,” you tell him. “Just, don’t move?”

He’s bigger everywhere, it seems; but he feels so good, so right inside you. Like he’s supposed to be there, like he owns a piece of your wrecked soul. “Stay?”

“I would stay here in you like this forever if I could,” he promises. “Just like this, nothing but the two of us.”

You breathe him in, the scent of his skin and his sweat; you tip your head up for more kisses which he liberally gives you. And when you feel yourself relax more under him, you tighten your legs around his waist and draw him further into you.

It hurts. You want to say it feels amazing, but he’s big and you’re not quite ready for him. You let out a high whine and he tenses, gets ready to pull back. “Bucky…”

“No, no Steve no,” you plead. “Don’t leave me. Just… just give me a minute, fuck. They made you big everywhere.”

He blushes – and how you crave this man all the more for it. “I’ll be fine if you’d just give me a minute. I want you, all of you, inside me. Let me, please.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s a good hurt. Feels like I’m yours again, not theirs. Never theirs.”

He kisses you, tips your chin up and buries his face in your neck. You can feel the mark he makes with his teeth, and you arch your head back to give him more room. “Mark me,” you say, and he’s only too happy to oblige.

When he bites down, your body goes liquid-loose beneath his and he slides the rest of the way into you. You both groan; Steve somehow manages to hold still, despite the tightness, and you whisper your thanks in his ear. “Tell me when,” he says. “I’ll go slowly, so slowly, never hurt you.”

“I know.”

It takes a few minutes, but when the throbbing stops, you move beneath him. “Now. Now, Stevie, now.”

He thrusts, sends you sliding up the bed with the power in his legs and thighs. You yelp and cling to him more tightly, rolling up so that he can get deeper, angle better. “Yes!”

It doesn’t last long after that. Something in the way his cock fills your hole, the way his palm strokes your body, and the way his mouth feeds you the air you need to breath, your orgasm overwhelms you and takes you by surprise. His own orgasm fills you, so deeply that when he finally softens and slides out of you, half his seed spills into your bed. “Christ,” he says, and the blasphemy makes you shiver in pleasure. You hope you’ve given him enough of yourself to make him want to keep you. You can’t imagine ever wanting to let him go, and it doesn’t scare you as much as it should. But you cling to that tiny hope, cling harder to the man who just made love to you like you were something precious instead of something used.

He drops on top of you, and you gasp, shoving at him until he’s lying on his back. You curl next to him, avoiding the damp patch as best possible. “Thank you.”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?”

“No,” you say. “Just… thank you. For this. For being there for me.”

He kisses your forehead and tucks you closer to him. “Always. Until the end of the line.”

Between the stress of the morning’s procedure and the emotional turmoil you just experienced, you let yourself fall asleep in his arms. And you know it should worry you, how much of yourself you want to give this man. But at the moment, you can’t bring yourself to give a damn.

Which is, of course, when everything goes to hell.

Chapter Text

The two of you spend the entire day in bed, with Steve making a quick trip to one of the other floors to pick up a tube of lubricant. “You wouldn’t believe what Tony has stocked in the bedrooms around here,” he says, scandalized, and you laugh so hard he gets mad at you and pouts.

“Don’t ever change,” you tell him, kissing him to appease him, but in retaliation he rolls you over and bites your ass until you mock-beg him for mercy. And then he makes you beg for different reasons entirely.

Finally, late in the afternoon, when your growling stomach refuses to stop, the two of you shower and dress in real clothes and head toward the common floor for a meal. He kisses you in the elevator, in the hallway; you eat up the attention and it’s why you miss the new person in the kitchen when you walk in.

“You know, Cap, your choice of bed partners leaves a lot to be desired.”

You react on sheer instinct; your right hand closes over the handle of one of the kitchen knives and before you think about it, you’ve got it flush to the black man’s throat. Only Steve’s panicked shout of “BUCKY!” stops you from sliding the blade across skin and bleeding him out.

“Jesus Christ!” Tony shouts from behind you. “No assassinations in my kitchen, please!”

You pause a moment, shaking with suppressed rage, and Steve says, “Hey Buck, any chance you could let Fury go?”

“Nyet,” you say, and shake your head. This man is a danger to you and to Steve. “He walks and death follows in his wake.”

“Look who’s talking, you motherfucking murderer!” Fury says, but his tone doesn’t match the slight tremble in his frame. “Get him the fuck off of me!”

“Buck,” Steve coaxes. “Let’s give him a chance to explain why he’s here, all right?”

No one moves until you blow out a frustrated breath and cleanly pull the knife away from his throat. Steve, in a very uncharacteristic display of temper, leans into Fury instead. “Just a suggestion, Nick? The next time you insult my choice of bed partners or talk poorly about my best friend, I’ll be the guy with the knife in your neck. And I just might not be as talented as Bucky when it comes to stopping myself in time. Are we clear?”

Fury sets his jaw, but replies, “Crystal.”

Tension settles into the room around you until Tony – and thank God for him really – claps his hands together. “So, Nicky! What has you darkening our door this evening? I thought you’d ditched the spy game and had headed off to parts unknown.”

“I tried. I’ve still got a lot of loose ends, Stark. And I thought I’d start with the easiest one: the Winter Soldier.”

You eye the cutlery again but Steve slaps your hand. “No,” he says, like you’re a bad puppy instead of a trained killer. “Behave.”

“Punk,” you say, and swipe an apple from the counter instead. You sink your teeth into it and glare at Fury. “So what kind of loose end am I?”

“Your previous employers know you’re still alive and they’re hunting for you,” he says, and it takes all your years of training to keep a perfectly neutral expression on your face. “A lot of them want to ensure you aren’t walking around spilling Hydra’s best secrets.”

“How much am I worth to them?” you ask. “And I assume they want me dead, not alive.”

“I don’t think they really give a fuck if you get to them in pieces or not. And it would probably save everyone a lot of time and heartache,” and here he looks at Steve, “if we just handed you over to them.”

You grin, slow and nasty. “You can try to send me back to them, but you might not like the body count it takes you to get me there.”

“What do Barton and Natasha think about it?” Tony interrupts, shooting you the same dark look Steve does. And great, now there’re two of them acting as your conscience. “Why aren’t they here, weighing in on your new schemes and lies?”

Fury sighs, tiredly. “You may as well as Doctor Banner to join us, Stark. I don’t feel like repeating myself.”

“Jarvis?”

“I’ve contacted Dr. Banner already, Sir.”

“Thanks J. Meanwhile, Barnes, I can hear your stomach from over here. What do you like to eat? Or should I just surprise everyone?”

“If you’re ordering food in, make sure it’s cooked,” Steve says, and by the tone of his voice you can tell this is an ongoing argument. “No sushi.”

“But Steve!”

“No,” he sighs, and shoos Tony out of the kitchen. “Jarvis, would you please pick something normal?”

“Of course, Captain.”

Fury leaves with Stark; you finish eating your apple and turn to head back into the main room. Steve’s hand falls upon your shoulder before you can go. You arch an eyebrow at him and he tips his head down to look at your hands… where you’re still clutching the knife with your prosthesis. “Maybe we should leave that in the kitchen,” he says, but he’s grinning at you like you’re sharing a joke. “We don’t want to ruin Tony’s furniture. Right?”

You flip the knife around and offer it to him handle-first. “This doesn’t mean I trust him.”

“Yeah. When I first met Tony, I was too willing to trust Fury. During the Battle of New York, I really got my eyes opened. I’m not the same naïve kid I was once.”

“If he becomes a threat, I’m going to kill him,” you say, and wince. “Since we’re being honest with each other.”

“If he becomes a threat, you won’t be going after him alone,” Steve promises, and leans in to kiss your mouth. “Not when I had to fight hell to get you back to me.”

You tilt your head to one side for more kisses, but are interrupted by Tony’s shout of, “Hey! We eat in there!”

You sigh, and try not to feel too ridiculous when Steve takes your good hand in his and leads you back into the common room. Tony, Fury, and Banner await you. “Where are Barton and Nat?” Steve asks, starting the conversation.

“Alberta, meeting with some of the few remaining top level S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. We’re trying to redirect resources as needed to find all of the Hydra members within our organization and flush them out.”

“The Canadian Shack?”

Fury’s head whips around to stare at you. “What the fuck did you just say?”

You blink; unaware you’d even spoken. “I… what? What did I say?”

“The Canadian Shack,” Steve says, slowly. “Do you remember something about it?”

“I… no? I guess I just heard it somewhere?”

“There are three people in the world that called Alberta the Canadian Shack, and two of them I know are dead,” Fury snaps. “And I sure as fuck didn’t tell you that.”

You close your eyes and concentrate as hard as you can; nothing comes to you. “I don’t know,” you say. “I get flashes of things, but nothing substantial.”

“Sounded pretty substantial to me.”

I shrug, and Bruce says, “So while Clint and Natasha are in Canada, what can the rest of us do to help root out Hydra?”

“Bruce! Science bros forever!” Tony says. “I bet we could get an algorithm going to determine who’s actually still playing for the home team.”

“We’ve got analysts on that, too,” Fury says. “People I still trust. Like Coulson.”

The other three men in the room freeze and you have no idea who this Coulson person is, but he’s obviously important. “Coulson’s dead,” Tony says, once he gets his breath back. “Loki stabbed him in the heart, Fury, why would you talk about something like that if he’s…”

“He’s not dead,” Fury cuts him off. “He’s alive. We were able to save him.”

Steve’s clenching his hands into fists and Bruce… Bruce is flushing, green then red then green then red. You have a feeling Dr. Banner hides a much deeper anger than you do. “You lied to us about Phil dying? How could you do that? How could even you stoop to that?”

“You needed a push,” Fury replies. “I needed the Avengers to save New York and defeat Loki. And Dr. Banner, if it makes you feel any better, you should’ve seen the conversation I had with Barton and Romanov before they left. Honestly, I’m a little afraid for Coulson when they get ahold of him.”

“Is this Coulson someone you trust to give you good intel?” you ask, and this time you’re very careful how you phrase your question. “He isn’t… altered by anything, like those of us here?”

Fury grits his teeth and you immediately sense he’s going to lie. “We need the truth,” you say, watching the tic in his cheek, the tension in his arms. “I may not remember myself, but there are some things I suppose they could not – or did not – break. Like watching someone about to lie try to convince other people of their honesty.”

“And you’re all about honesty, aren’t you,” he shoots back. “We should just trust you because Captain America says so – like you haven’t got him wrapped around your little finger or your dick…”

You watch in absolute shock as Steve punches him in the face. “Motherfucker!” Fury shouts, holding his hand under his bloody nose. “Cap, do you even see what he’s doing to you? You’re going to trust a hit man with more kills to his name for the opposing side than me…”

“Bucky’s still here,” Tony says. “Six weeks of being here and not being any more harm to anyone than the rest of us are. And you know the kind of damage we could all do if we tried, Nicky.”

“So you’re willing to trust him too, Stark?” Fury laughs. “That’s kind of funny. What makes you put your faith in him?”

Tony shoots to his feet and paces. “Maybe because I saw what happened to Clint when Loki locked him in his own mind? Or maybe because I happen to trust Steve and his judgment, whether or not I always agree with him. Or maybe I’m just rooting for the underdog here. Take your pick.”

“And how much would you support him, if you knew he was the reason your parents were dead?”

Tony stops, blanches, and you know the look on your own face must match. “What?” he whispers, and it’s Bruce who gets up and guides Tony to the couch before he collapses. “What did you say?”

“The Winter Soldier was credited – by S.H.I.E.L.D., along with several other agencies – for being the assassin who caused the crash that killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991. It was the first time we’d seen or heard of the Soldier since the late seventies. But you don’t have to take my word for it, Stark. Once all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files got leaked on the ‘net, you could’ve checked for yourself.”

“Jarvis,” Tony says, but Jarvis must already have searched because he replies, “Director Fury is telling you the truth, Sir. The Winter Soldier was named as the person who caused your parents’ accident.”

You know, hypothetically, that when you kill someone it would cause horrifying pain to those people left behind. But you’d never seen anyone in that aftermath, never gotten a firsthand view of a man crumbling into himself the way Tony sags into Bruce. Despite all of Tony’s callousness, his sarcasm, his sharpness, he cannot hide the way it destroys him to learn that you are the monster who took his parents from him.

And nothing you can say can bring them back, can fix the wrong you’ve done.

“Do you feel proud of yourself, Nick?” Steve asks, voice laced with such anger you can hardly breathe for it. “Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?”

“You need to know the kind of person you’ve decided to trust,” he says, coldly. “People don’t come back without battle scars, Captain. The man sitting next to you isn’t the friend you grew up with.”

“Get out.”

“Captain…”

“Get. Out,” Steve bites. “Jarvis, once Director Fury gets into the elevator, make sure he’s escorted out of the building by the security team.”

“You’re choosing the wrong side,” Fury says.

“No,” Steve replies. “I’m choosing my own side. And if there’s work to be done, we’ll avenge it on our own without S.H.I.E.L.D, and its lies, and your bullshit. Get out.”

You feel more than see Fury leave, practically manhandled out of the room in Steve’s iron grip. You’re too busy watching Tony cry into Bruce’s chest, helpless to do anything other than sit by and await judgment. For you can’t – you won’t – run from these men, whom you owe more than your miserable life is worth. “I didn’t know,” you choke out, quietly.

Bruce shakes his head at you and coos at Tony, hugging him until the engineer hasn’t any tears left to cry. “I need a fucking scotch,” he says, finally. He doesn’t look at you.

You get up, head to the bar area at the far side of the room, pour a glass of scotch… and then bring the bottle with you. “Here,” you say, handing both things to Bruce.

You kneel in front of Tony, who still won’t look at you. “I didn’t know,” you say again, softly. “But I would offer you my own life as forfeit, if you need blood for blood.”

He doesn’t speak for a moment, drinks one glass, then another of the amber liquid in front of him. Steve’s back by the time he says, “I wouldn’t ask for that. But I can’t. I can’t stand to see you right now, either. Rationally I know it wasn’t your choice, but I still can’t look at you.”

You understand; it’s more than you could’ve hoped for. You push yourself to your feet and head for the elevator to return to your floor. Steve calls to you but you shake your head at him, get into the elevator and watch the doors close behind you. When you get back to your floor, you return to your favorite spot by the windows. “Jarvis, don’t let anyone in tonight, please?”

He acknowledges your request and you stare into the distance, wondering what other gems in your past will come out and horrify the people you know. What other things will prove you to be more than a murderer, more than someone to hate.

You don’t move for a very long time.

Chapter Text

You wake up on the floor; you must’ve passed out at some point during the night and collapsed onto the carpeting. You look around for the time and realize it’s late morning. “Jarvis?”

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes.”

“”Hi, Jarvis. Did Steve try to come in last night?”

“He did, Sir. I asked him to give you space, as you’d requested.”

You nod. “Is he still nearby?”

“He’s sleeping in the hallway, Sir.”

You shake your head. “Thanks, Jarvis.”

“Sergeant Barnes… forgive me if this oversteps boundaries, but my Creator does not blame you for your role in his parents’ deaths.”

“How can he not blame me? How can he not hate me?” you ask, laughing without humor. “I don’t even know how I killed them, or why. I blindly took his family from him without any reason or sense!”

“I believe that is why he doesn’t blame you,” Jarvis replies, “as you had no control over your circumstances. I would ask you to try to talk to him, and maybe that would help both of you come to terms with the situation.”

Honesty. Why does everyone demand honesty from you – a professional liar? And worse – why do they always seem to believe you to be a better man than you are?

“I’ll try, Jarvis,” you say, blaming Steve for rubbing his virtues off on you. “For now, would you let Steve in?”

“Of course, Sergeant Barnes.”

Steve must’ve been waiting for the all-clear, because he’s on his knees and curled around you within seconds of you giving Jarvis the go ahead. “Why did you shut me out?” he asks, digging his hands into your hair and resting his forehead on yours. “Why?”

“I… I needed space,” you say, and it’s only a half-lie. No matter how desperate you were to have Steve with you, it would’ve killed you if he’d discarded you at your most vulnerable. “I needed to think about what I’d done, to try to remember. I owe him that much.”

“He knows it wasn’t you. Bruce talked to him all night and I kept checking in with them.”

“I owe him a life debt. I can never pay it back. Steve, there’s so much I’ve done that I still don’t know…”

“We’re going to find out,” he promises. “We’re going to do it together. And Tony, Tony’s already forgiven you, he’s mostly hurting more for the memory and for the way Fury dumped it in his lap.”

“But his anger has merit.”

“He’s angry at the men in Hydra who made you the way you were. Bucky, when someone dies, no one blames the gun. They blame the person holding the gun.”

You gape and pull away from him, only for him to catch you and shake you. “Listen to me! In this case, Buck… you weren’t the person pulling the trigger. You were the gun, and someone else was behind you, telling you to do it. Would you have killed innocent people, if you knew what you were doing? Could you kill a child now, if I asked you to?”

“No,” you say, and shake your head. “But you wouldn’t ever ask me to.”

“And that’s what we understand. Fury can deal in spy games and death threats somewhere else. He thought by telling Tony about his parents, it would destroy any trust we had in you. But it backfired. Because more than ever, I know – and Tony knows – that you’re the guy who was my best friend, not some faceless, nameless killer without a heart.”

He pulls you closer against his chest, wipes his thumb over your cheek and you’re surprised by the wetness he pulls away. “Murderers don’t cry over people. Murderers don’t care who they hurt. Bucky, the first thing you did was fall apart when Fury made his announcement, and offer Tony the ability to kill you as payback. I bet you’ve been panicking in here all night, torturing yourself over something you had no control over. Right?”

You nod, and he kisses you. “I’ve loved you a long time, James Barnes. I know we’re in for a lot worse before it gets better. But you can’t shut me out. Your past is our past, and I’m with you. You have to let me be that guy – remember what I asked you? If you’re going to trust me, then you have to trust me and let me be your best friend.”

You bury into him, wrap yourself around him like an octopus. He holds you until you can regain some of yourself. “I want to talk to Tony,” you say. “I have to try to make this right.”

He nods. “Tony’s in his workshop. How about we eat something and then go find him? I know you didn’t eat last night. Go get a shower and I’ll pull something together for you.”

You obey; right now, it’s easier to walk on autopilot then it is to think for yourself. You strip down, take a shower, and put on clean clothes. By the time you rejoin Steve in your living area, he’s pulled together a couple pieces of toast and a cup of coffee. “Eat.”

You pick at the food but don’t taste it; the crumbs turn to ash in your throat and choke you. “I want to go see him, Steve.”

Steve nods, walks with you to the elevator and down to Tony’s lab. The music is so loud when you arrive that you flinch from it. “Jarvis? Would you tell Tony we’re here?” Steve asks.

A moment passes and the music cuts out. You have to take a deep breath before you can open the door and walk inside. Bruce is nowhere to be seen, but Tony’s there, looking haggard and exhausted, covered in grease and up to his elbows in what looks like a car engine. He meets your eyes and gives you a half-smile. “Hi,” you say, feeling foolish.

“Hi,” he says, and before you can even think about it you walk over to him, wrap your arms around him, and hug him tightly.

“God, Tony, I’m so sorry,” you say, and you can feel the tears on your face again. “I didn’t know, but I’ll do anything you ask of me. I swear, anything.”

He pats your back, hangs onto you until he clears his throat and steps back. “I’ve really never been a hug-it-out guy,” he says, embarrassed.

“Sorry.”

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t want anything from you, you know.”

“But since I offered?”

“Maybe someday. Maybe it’s better not knowing the whole story, you know?”

His question could apply to your entire life. “Maybe it’s better knowing than being horrified learning what you’re capable of.”

There’s no good answer for any of it and for once, Tony doesn’t seem to have the sarcasm to lighten the mood. Instead, he nods at you, and says, “Who’s to say, if you hadn’t been a sniper in modern times, you wouldn’t have been killed with a weapon I’d made? That you wouldn’t have been another victim of my life’s work? You do what you have to do to survive, and then you do what you have to do to sleep at night.”

“It’s a lie we all tell ourselves.”

“Yes.”

Steve, who’s been silent thus far, says, “If my opinion matters at all, I find myself lucky to be in the company of two good men. There’s no such thing as a perfect person, but you’ve both saved my life, and I wouldn’t want either of you to be anything other than who you are.”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“You’re a damn boy scout,” Tony says, but it with fondness. “So, we’ve kicked Fury out of the clubhouse, we’ve got Hydra planning on doing away with Barnes here, and we’re without our Danger Twin assassins. Any ideas?”

“As much as I hate to say it, I think we should bring Fury back in,” Bruce says, joining us. “By the way, thank you Jarvis, for being the only person to think to contact me for this little tete-a-tete.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Banner.”

“And I think you should ask Sam to join us, Jarvis,” you add. “I know he’s somewhere in the building. Poor guy probably feels ignored after the last few days.”

“I believe Mr. Wilson’s been spending time with Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes,” Jarvis says. “Shall I ask them to come as well?”

“Please. Ask everyone to assemble in the common area on the 45th?”

“Of course, Captain,” Jarvis says. “Would you like me to try to contact Director Fury? Or perhaps I should try to contact Agents Barton and Romanov?”

“Try Clint, Jarvis. He’s probably the only one that’ll talk to us right now.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“So we’ve got the team,” Tony says. “Now what?”

“Now we strike first,” you say, a slightly manic smile crossing your face. “I have a few ideas.”

Chapter Text

“Absolutely not!”

“Steve…”

“No, Bucky. You can’t. That’s a suicide mission!”

“And it might be the only one we have,” you argue, crossing your arms over your chest. “I can do this where no one else can.”

“And what happens if the drugs don’t work right, or we end up erasing everything that’s happened for the last six weeks?”

“Then you shoot me, and you haven’t lost anything by trying.”

A sharp whistle cuts through the discussion; we both look at Miss Potts. Pepper. “Please,” she says, motioning for you and Steve to sit down. “I’d like to hear what Tony and Bruce think about this idea.”

The idea – to put a finite point on it – involves you having the Avengers do their own version of drug cocktails and electroshock therapy, and you returning to Hydra with more of your memories in an effort to get to the new executive members. “This is a good plan,” you say, unwilling to give up so easily. “Imagine the kind of damage you could do with someone on the inside.”

“Imagine the kind of damage Hydra could do if they fucking killed you!” Steve shouts, and wow. No one’s ready for the expletive to fall from his mouth. “I refuse to be party to that! And damn it, Bucky, I can’t go through losing you again!”

“Wouldn’t the safety of the rest of the world take precedence over either of us?”

Before Steve can reply, Bruce says, “Any kind of chemical or electrical therapy would be at a significant risk, James.”

“A risk I’m willing to take to set a lot of things right,” you protest, and pointedly don’t look at Tony. “That has to count for something! Who knows what I know, that could be of use?”

“Sam, what do you think, from a rehabilitation standpoint?” Pepper asks. “Do you think it would help James more to know what he may or may not remember?”

Sam shakes his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with you, man. Honestly? You scare the shit out of me. I know how easily you took me down in D.C. But if I had to take an educated guess, I would say learning what you did would be healthier for you, than having so many holes to fill in. Or having people throw your past at you when you weren’t ready for it.”

You collapse back in your seat in relief that he seems to be on your side. That is until he adds, “But if you get your memories back, I still wouldn’t send you anywhere near Hydra. From what we’ve learned, the first thing those guys will do is torture you, turn you into a killing machine again, or kill you outright. And none of that works for me as an option.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, throwing up his hands. “Finally, a little sense!”

Sam continues with, “But Steve, I hate to say it, if Tony and Bruce can find a way to reverse his amnesia, we’d have a better time evening the playing field. And you’d get even more of your best friend back than you have now. How can you tell the guy no?”

“Are you sure you weren’t a diplomat?” Colonel Rhodes asks him. “Look, the Air Force isn’t thrilled about having our dirty laundry hung out for the world to see. Whatever you guys need as back-up, I’ll make it happen with the Secretary of Defense of anyone else I have to convince.”

“Thanks brother,” Tony says.

“Anytime.”

“Sir, if I may interrupt, there are several Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in the lobby asking to see you.”

“Barton and Natasha?”

“Along with Director Fury, Agent Coulson, and Agent Coulson’s new team.”

The room gets quiet again. None of the people assembled had been happy to learn of Fury’s dishonesty about this Agent Coulson. “Send them up, Jarvis.”

While you wait, Steve moves to sit at your feet. “What’re you doing?”

He flushes. “I don’t think I like the idea of Fury and you in the same room together again. Without me wanting to hurt him.”

You understand the feeling. Honestly, the crowd of people surrounding you is making you nervous and uncomfortable. “It’s claustrophobic in here.”

“We need a bigger meeting area, if Fury’s going to keep bringing us strays.”

“I don’t think you can call that kettle black, Stevie,” you say, pointing to yourself. “Since you brought your own stray to the party.”

“Dragged your sorry ass, more like it. Jerk.”

You grin at him, and he grins back. He leans against your legs like a chair cushion and you stroke your prosthetic through his hair. “Not a pet,” he says.

“Quit whining, you love this.”

He doesn’t argue, curls a hand around your calves instead. This is how Fury and his agents find you; the two of you entangled in complete comfort with each other. “Nicky!” Tony says. “I’d say it’s good to see you again, but I’m not as accomplished a liar as you are.”

“I see you haven’t taken my advice on getting rid of the Winter Soldier,” Fury states, flatly. “I’m surprised at you, Stark. I thought it would be the first things you did.”

“Yeah, well. If anyone in this room can throw stones from their glass houses, I’m sure it would be you,” Tony says. “It isn’t always easy making the decision to give someone a second chance, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. And oh, speaking of second chances, who’s that dead guy behind you? Is that Agent Agent I see?”

The man – slightly balding, plain faced, calm – nods at Tony. “Stark. It’s good to see you again.”

“We all really missed you, Phil,” Pepper says, from her seat on the couch. She dabs a tissue at her eyes. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you again.”

The agents stare nervously at the Avengers; the Avengers do not seem worried about staring back. Finally, a girl pulls a curly-haired boy to the front. They look at Tony and she says, “Mr. Stark, my name’s Jemma Simmons, and this is my partner Leo Fitz. We’re huge fans of your engineering, especially your Enervation Intensifier. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Tony grins. “Nice to meet you too. You all can sit down, if you can find a place. You might have to take the floor like Cap did, though.”

You watch them settle onto cushions, chairs, sofas. It still amazes you that living rooms can be big enough to comfortably seat almost twenty people. The other dark-haired girl sits next to an Asian woman on one couch, and a tall, athletic man sits on the floor next to her. You stare at him, not only because he’s good looking. But because as you know you breathe, you’ve seen him before.

He’s not who he says he is, your brain whispers, and you’ve learned to pay attention to the feelings you get when phrases and ideas pop into your head the longer you’ve been awake. So you decide to throw caution out the window as you ask, “So why is it that S.H.I.E.L.D. travels with Hydra agents?”

Six people in the room leap to their feet at once; the one who moves fastest is the dark-haired man, but you aren’t called the Winter Soldier for nothing. You lift one of the books off of the coffee table and hurl it at him as he tries to grab the younger woman next to him, and the tome hits him solidly in the chest. Barton and Romanov pin him seconds later, while most of the rest of the room looks at him in various stages of shock. The brunette who’d yet to introduce herself chokes out, “Grant?”

“You’re not going to believe that psychopath, are you, Skye?” the man called Grant asks. “He’s a killer and a liar!”

“Then why did you try to take a hostage?” you ask. “I know your face.”

“Tell me it isn’t true, Ward,” Coulson demands, but you see that he already knows the answer. “Tell me that you’re not Hydra. Tell me that you’re not in league with John Garrett!”

Ward shuts his mouth, shakes his head, and doesn’t say anything else. Coulson and Fury produce cuffs from somewhere, with Coulson saying, “Melinda, drive him to the bus and lock his ass up. Get him out of our sight. And Ward, I’d be ready for a very unpleasant day ahead.”

As the Asian woman frog-marches Ward to the elevator, you can’t help but say, “Director Fury. Your choice of bed partners leaves a lot to be desired.”

“You think this is funny, motherfucker?”

You smile. “I think that you should sit down, and stop pointing fingers my way until you can be certain your own house is cleaned.”

“And you think you’re the man to do it.”

“That’s what we need to finish discussing,” Steve says. He points a finger at you and says, “And by stirring up a battle between us, none of us are going to succeed.”

You bite his finger out of spite and ignore the noise he makes, because this probably isn’t the best time for Steve to turn you on. You sit back in your chair and give him the opportunity to speak. “Look,” he says, and blushes despite himself. “None of us really have any reason to trust each other, it’s true. None of you have my history with Bucky, and half of the people in the room are spies. It doesn’t create the most positive working environment.”

“So what do you suggest, Captain Rogers?”

Steve sighs. “I think Bruce and Tony should work on whatever they can do to create their amnesia fix, so Bucky can get his memories back.”

“Fitz and I can help with that, Mr. Stark.”

Bruce and Tony exchange glances, and Tony nods at her. “I’m not really thrilled to have S.H.I.E.L.D. in my workshop, but under the circumstances I’ll accept your help.”

“The next thing we have to do is to find out how far Hydra’s reach stretches, and start taking them out – as many simultaneously coordinated strikes as we can manage at once.”

“The Fridge should be one of the first on the list, Director,” Coulson says, and Fury makes a noise of agreement. “That should be a high-level priority.”

“Agreed,” Fury says. “Hill and the other few top agents would have to help coordinate and lead such an attack. And what would you recommend we do once we round up all of Hydra’s agents?”

Steve closes his eyes and doesn’t say anything for a moment; as a tactician, you know what he hesitates to put into words. So, as his lover and partner, you do it for him – and take the flak it brings. “We kill them all. Because sometimes we have no other choice, except to bring death to those who are against us.”

Pepper and Rhodes start sputtering immediately; you don’t give an inch, staring them down impassively. “As much as I hate to say it, I agree with him. You can’t reason with some people,” Coulson says. “And by giving them a chance for rehabilitation or confinement, we open ourselves up to future coordinated attacks.”

“Time to clean house,” Fury says. “We need to move soon, but not too soon. They’ve had major setbacks in Washington and across the globe; we need to give them time to think they’re ahead, and show themselves to us.”

“So we wait?”

“We wait.”

“And in the meantime, we work to free up the Winter Soldier’s memories, so we have the best intel possible,” says the girl who introduced herself as Simmons.

“I think, under the circumstances, it would be appropriate for you to call me James.”

“Right,” she says. “James. Good! Great. Excellent. Thank you. I promise we’ll do our best by you.”

“You’d better,” you say. She looks terrified, so you clarify, “You’d better do your best by me, or we’re all well and truly screwed.”

Chapter Text

Two weeks pass. Fury and his team have taken up residence in one of the lower floors, and you do your absolute best to avoid him. You especially avoid the woman, Romanov, because she reminds you every time you see her of how you almost killed Steve.

Bruce and FitzSimmons work on the right combination of drugs and electricity to rejuvenate your memories; you spar with Steve and Sam, and shoot targets with Clint, and watch as Skye and Jarvis light up a room with walls and walls of holographic data. Tony drags you to his workshop daily, having you test different versions of your arm to see which ones work (projectile weaponry) and which ones don’t (small range missiles). You try to do everything possible to prepare for the upcoming war, but you can’t be in all places at once, and you still feel like you don’t remember enough to give your teammates (damn Steve for getting the word stuck in your head) a fighting chance.

“Hey, can I join you?”

You’re sitting on the roof in a plush chair, next to a pool that overlooks the city skyline. How odd it is that you’ve been given an all-access pass to the Tower. You try not to think about Tony’s parents and how he trusts you despite everything you’ve done and…

“So is that a ‘no’?”

You look at Skye and gesture for her to sit. “Free world, you can sit wherever you want.”

She doesn’t sit directly next to you, but two chairs away. “So.”

You don’t respond to her, simply put your feet up and take a swig from your bottle of water. You feel weird wearing shorts, but here you are in a tee-shirt and something Pepper had called, ‘cargo shorts’. You’re not sure how she ended up dressing you, but she’d done the same for Steve, so you let it go.

“Grant betrayed me, and I can’t forgive him, and I wanted to know how you and Steve deal with what happened to you.”

You stare at her and you know your mouth is hanging open. She asks, “Sorry, too blunt? Am I not supposed to ask about the ‘brainwashed master assassin’ thing, or the ‘you and Steve are totally gay for each other’ thing?”

“Uh,” you say, because how does one answer that? “Either? I wasn’t expecting that. Any of it.”

“Sure, right, I get it. No one asks a psychotic for advice, I should totally leave you alone…”

“No, it’s okay,” you reply. You scratch the back of your neck awkwardly. “I’m not really good with people.”

“I’m thinking that’s a huge understatement.”

You shrug. “But you don’t seem afraid of me.”

“I saw you petting Captain America like a house cat and you pretty much saved my life when Grant tried to use me as a hostage. You can consider me a supporter of ‘Team Bucky’ for life.”

You blink. “Thanks?”

“No problem. So, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with people betraying you?”

“I guess you just stop caring after a while,” you say. “You stop trusting people so much. It’s part of the business you got into when you became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Remember that the people who are your friends will never truly be your friends, and you’ll be fine.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good way to live.”

“If you believe otherwise, you won’t live very long. Trust me on that, if nothing else.”

She falls silent. You stare at the ripples rolling across the pool, and you see her anxiety in the way she shifts in her chair. Damn it. This being a good person thing sucks sometimes. “You could always quit,” you suggest, hoping to ease her tension. “This way of life isn’t for everyone.”

“If you could do it all over again, knowing everything that happened to you and thinking about those things that could happen in the future, would you walk away?”

The sliding glass doors open behind us and Steve walks out wearing flip-flops and swim trunks. They hang to his knees but hug the curve of his ass like his suit does. You can't help staring. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” you say, and get out of your chair. You toss off your shirt, and hope Tony wasn’t lying about your arm being waterproof. “Last one in’s a chicken!”

Steve half-tackles you into the shallow end of the pool and you laugh, swimming away from him and clinging to the edge. He treads water next to you. “Try not to drown this time,” he tells you, and you stick out your tongue at him like a child.

“You too, Rogers.”

You’re like two children playing without a care in the world, because you both need the break from the horror going on around you. Another splash sounds off next to you and you turn to find Skye dog paddling through the water. She's stripped down to her underwear, which is black and still covers her but damn, what a dame…

A small tidal wave goes up your nose and you sputter. “Stop staring,” Steve growls, and you shiver at the possessive tone. “What were you two talking about anyway?”

Is that the green-eyed monster you see on his shoulder? “She wanted advice about how to deal with her friend’s betrayal. That’s all, Steve. She knows I’m yours and wasn’t trying to poach.”

“Then why are you staring?”

“Because I’m not blind?” you say, grinning as he huffs at you. “Look, Stevie. She’s a good looking girl, but I tend to like them tall and blond. And besides, she’s probably comfortable swimming in her skivvies because she's with two guys who like dick, you know?”

“Except you dated every girl in Brooklyn when we were kids.”

“That’s because the only dame I fell in love with wasn’t a dame, and I didn’t know he loved me back until we were much older.”

He hangs onto the wall next to me. “You remembered that?”

“Bits and pieces, yeah. Things keep coming back to me. I hope Bruce and FitzSimmons can help with that.”

“Are you two going to actually swim or just make out over there?”

You laugh, you can’t help yourself. “Make out."

She stops swimming and stares. "Don't mind me over here watching."

Steve makes a scandalized face and you roll your eyes. "Hey, soldier. Don't mind her. Pay attention to me instead."

"But Bucky..."

You kiss him, licking your way into his mouth until he groans. Only when you part does he say, "I never knew you had an exhibitionist streak."

"Neither did I," you reply. "Maybe I just want everyone to know I'm yours."

"That's not going to encourage me to stop."

"Who wants you to stop?"

He slides a hand down your back and reaches between your bodies to tug at the zipper on your shorts. "Anyone ever tell you that you're not supposed to swim in your clothes?"

You happily let him strip away your shorts and toss them out of the pool, leaving you in white briefs that hide nothing. He kisses you. "Not sure I like the idea of anyone seeing you like this."

"I don't intend to get out of the pool for a while. At least until Skye leaves."

She's still watching the two of you and laughs when she overhears you. "I promise not to look too much."

The three of you float mindlessly in the water for an hour or so, until Tony walks into the roof. "Hey Barnes. I need to borrow you and your arm for a new prototype."

"Sure."

Steve stares at your ass as you exit the pool; Skye whistles. You absolutely do not blush as she shouts, "At least we know one reason Steve keeps you around. Hooyah, Sergeant Barnes!"

Tony shakes his head and tosses you a towel. "Hooyah’s the Navy, Skye. And I thought I was bad. Here. Don't want you dripping in my shop."

You dry off and wrap your towel around your waist, padding across the carpet and into the elevator. When you reach his workshop, he tosses you a pair of sweatpants. You shuck your briefs and pull the pants over your hips. "You can keep those," he says, scowling, and you laugh.

"So what are we doing today?"

Dummy hands you a strawberry smoothie with a very low-dose sedative in it. Because for some reason, the ‘bot seems to like you thanks to your prosthetic arm. You pat him on the head and drink it while Tony starts detaching your prosthesis; the process doesn't hurt anymore thanks to Tony's neural inhibitors, but the noise still makes your skin crawl. "Tony?"

"Today I'm going to try a new arm with guns and hydraulics that are study enough to stand up to an EMP discharge. But to test it, I'm going to juice you up with the arc reactor and there's a distinct possibility that it'll hurt like a bitch."

"Is that why we left Steve in the pool?"

"And that’s how I know you’re not only a pretty face," he teases.

You roll your eyes and sit down in a chair so you don't fall over. Already the nerves in your arm are numb and your legs start to give out. "Bigger dose today?"

"Little bit. You're okay here."

"I know. Trust you."

He gives you a look but doesn't respond. The arm you're wearing comes off and is replaced with a heavier model. You can feel a different sense of sturdiness with this model; it's more like the arm you had before Steve saved you.

"How's it feel?"

"Solid. Ready to go."

"Good. The weaponry will respond to your thoughts once I add in the final neural link. Right now I just want to test hydraulics and the EMP. Jarvis, lock down the lab for us, won't you?"

"Locked down and ready, Sir."

"Okay Barnes. Now hang onto your ass."

He signals Jarvis with a nod and whatever happens, you feel like your ears are bleeding. The pain is excruciating. You don't think, you just react; your metal palm slams into the center of his chest, knocking him backwards with such force that you stumble to your feet, woozy, screaming for Jarvis to stop whatever he's doing.

"Tony!" you shout, the minute you can feel your brains again. “What the fuck?”

Tony groans. "Jesus, that hurt."

"I'm so sorry!" you say. "I didn't… holy fuck. Did I hurt the arc reactor?"

You yank his shirt up, terrified, and the stupid bastard's laughing. "Barnes. It would take a hell of a lot more than your little slap to hurt the arc reactor."

As is to prove his point, the reactor glows steadily under your hands. "That scared the fuck outta me," you admit. "Thought I'd killed you there for a second."

"The arc reactor could hold up under a nuclear blast. I would melt, but this little gem would be fine."

"Oh."

"Bet you gave me a hell of a bruise though. I'm telling Steve to watch out for your abusive behavior."

"Damn it, don't joke! I could've really fucking hurt you, you asshole!"

"Barnes," Tony says, catching your flailing wrists in his hands. "I'm fine. And you've got to stop this. "

"Stop what?"

"The guilt," he says. "I'm fine and you're not gonna break me. Okay?"

"Tony..."

"No, stop. You treat me differently because of your past with my parents and it's ridiculous. I know it wasn't you, all right?"

"But I don't know that," you say. And therein lies your difficulty. "I don't know if I just pulled a trigger, or if I was the one who planned the whole thing. And I don't know how you could possibly forgive that."

"Because if you were a cold-hearted killer, you wouldn't still be worrying about it. Unless you're a much better actor than we give you credit for."

You lean over him and rest your forehead on the reactor. "Steve says the same thing," you mumble. “I can’t get past it.”

"Well your boyfriend's a smart guy, and I'm a genius, so at some point you should try to believe us. And get over yourself."

"Yeah, okay."

He runs a hand through your hair. "Good. Now, back to my testing. Based on that response, I would guess my programming worked and the arm's awesome, right?"

"Right."

He grins and gives you a shove. "Great. Now get off me before Steve murders me on principle."

"Didn't know you played both sides of the field, Stark."

"For you and Steve, I'd make an exception. Now let me run a few more tests and then you can go sun with Steve and Skye again."

"Yes sir."

He swats at you until you let him up, then spends half an hour poking at you. "Looks good. If you think it's comfortable after a couple days, I'll give you the implants and from them on, all of the weaponry will be active. I would suggest heading down to the range to practice with the new tech as soon as possible."

"You name the time and I'll be there."

He nods and throws a tube at you. "Get out of my shop and take that with my compliments."

"What is it?"

"It's a combination sunscreen and personal lubricant. So you can ride Steve like a cowboy without getting your dick sunburned. Now get out of my shop."

You blush; his laughter follows you all the way to the elevator as you escape back to the pool. When you finally make it to the roof, Skye is gone and Steve's laying on his stomach on one of the lounge chairs. "Jarvis," you say, "are any of the other people in the Tower near the roof?"

"No Sir. Did you want me to call for someone?"

"Actually I was hoping you could lock all of them out."

"With the exception of my Creator, I'd be very happy to do that for you, Sergeant Barnes."

"Thanks Jarvis."

"My pleasure, Sir."

You walk up to Steve's chair and perch on the edge of it. "Hello there, soldier. Need someone to rub some lotion on your back?"

He sighs, sleepy from the sun, and turns his head to look at you. "Hey," he says. "You're back."

"And we have the entire rooftop to ourselves."

“Hmm? Oh. How’d that happen?”

“Jarvis is helping me out and locked the doors for us. You want to make the most of it with me?”

He rolls over, displaying a significant bulge in his swim trunks. “Do you even have to ask?”

You lean over and kiss him, sighing against his skin. “You feel good,” he says, and runs a finger down your new arm. “This is heavier. Tony?”

“Weaponized but still offline until he can teach me how to use it,” you say. “You like?”

“I probably shouldn’t find it as much a turn on as I do,” he admits, and sucks one of your metal fingers into his mouth. Massaging it with his tongue, he reaches out and tugs you closer.

“Jesus Steve, I can feel that.”

“Want me to do it to your dick?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely, fuck yes.”

He throws back his head and laughs then twists the two of you up like a human pretzel, your legs and bodies entwined on the chair. He tugs at the strings on Tony’s stolen pants, pushing and pulling so that you’re on your back and he’s on his knees above you. “Fuck, Steve. You look like some sort of bronze statue come to life above me. You’re so damn gorgeous.”

He tugs your pants just below your balls, using the elastic waistband like a shelf to rest your genitals upon. “You don’t have to flatter me. I’m a sure thing.”

“Hey,” you say, and put your hands on his shoulders to stop him. “I don’t flatter you because I want something. I want you to know how gorgeous you are, and how much I care about you, punk. Even if you were still that scrawny, asthmatic kid, I’d still be saluting you in my pants. All right?”

Steve mouths saluting in your pants at you and you grin. “Come on, you know what I mean.”

He bends forward and sucks the tip of your dick into his mouth as reply, and you cry out as he simultaneously slides two lubed fingers into your ass. You might survive war, torture, trauma and disaster, but fuck … Steve might kill you with sex.

You’re perfectly okay with that.

Chapter Text

When Bruce and FitzSimmons tell you that they’ve perfected their version of Veritaserum (an inside joke for FitzSimmons – something to do with a boy wizard), you sit down with them, Skye, Sam, Tony, and Steve to discuss the finite details. “I want you to lock me down before you give that to me,” you say, and won’t accept any arguments from them. “And I don’t want Fury there.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Jemma says, and kicks Leo in the shins when he starts to protest. “Not everything you recall could be mission related,” she stresses, glaring Leo down. “We understand that private memories should remain private, James.”

Damn it, you’ve really started to grow attached to the baby-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that travel with Coulson. “Thanks.”

“Of course. Might I suggest that Jarvis, as he’s recording everything, provide the Director with an edited version, to prevent any fallout afterwards?”

“I’m okay with that,” you agree, and she smiles brightly. “That brings me to my other point: I don’t want anyone but Dr. Banner and Sam in the room with me while I’m under the influence of the drug.”

It’s Steve who protests first and loudest. “Why not?”

“Because they can ask me questions without leading me in any particular direction,” you tell him. “Stevie… come on. You’re going to be as emotionally compromised as I am in this. I have no idea what I will or won’t remember, and if we’re going to get any useful information then I need someone with a clear and unbiased headspace. You know that as well as I do.”

He deflates. “I wanted to be there for you.”

“Then sit outside of the lab and listen in. Surely that’s something Jarvis can do? Tony, is that okay with you?”

“Sure. That’s easy enough.”

“We should do it first thing in the morning,” Jemma says. “You can’t eat after midnight tonight and tomorrow we’ll put you under. If the procedure goes smoothly, would you find it prudent for Mr. Stark to connect the neural links for your permanent shoulder joint? That would allow you to change the prostheses as you please but retain full control over the special features of each one.”

“Might as well do it all at once,” you say. “Just… is there any reverse to this? If I’m under and not doing well, can you bring me out of it?”

She pauses, looks to Banner. Bruce shakes his head no. “If worse comes to worse, we can chemically cease any seizures or physical responses. But once you’re delving into your memories, you’re somewhat on your own.”

You nod, take a shaky breath. “Right.”

“Bucky, you don’t have to do this,” Steve says. “We’ve got other roads we can utilize to go after Hydra, and other methods that…”

“But do you have other options to show me who I was in the seventy years we were separated? Other than hearsay and lies from government agencies? Do you have any way to find out what I did, who I was?”

He gives you the sad eyes and you scoot your chair closer to his. “Steve, I need this. And I need your support in this. I can’t do it without you.”

“Of course I support you,” he says. “I’m just scared to death that you’re going to get hurt by what you learn.”

“But I’ve got this guy,” you say, nudging him. “This guy who offered to be my friend when I really needed one, when I had no reason to trust him. He offered me a chance at a whole life and even when I couldn’t remember him, I knew his character and knew I could believe in him. So what’s this but one more bump in the road for us to face together?”

He leans over and kisses your forehead. “I love you too. I’ve got your back.”

“Aww,” Jemma and Skye sigh in unison, and then laugh at us as we both blush. “You guys are ridiculously adorable. I can’t believe I was even remotely scared of you,” Skye says.

“You didn’t see him on the battlefield,” Sam retorts. “He is a badass, scary dude and took out a small army by himself.”

You scratch at the back of your neck. “Uh, thanks, Sam. I think.”

The group finishes discussing the plan and you spend the rest of the day lounging around with Steve. And if you’re clingier than you’ve been, he doesn’t call you on it. You hardly separate from him for lunch, or dinner – and you beg him to make love to you when the two of you go to bed. The waiting period passes so quickly that before you know it, you’re being strapped down to a table in Tony’s lab. Steve stands next to you like your own personal bodyguard, gripping your hand in his and pressing his forehead to yours in support. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he promises. “I won’t leave your side until you force me to go. No matter what happens, I’m yours and you’re mine. All right?”

You nod, unable to answer aloud for fear of giving yourself away. Leo and Jemma hook you up to monitors, wires trailing off of your body to various machines. She attaches a sticky pad to each of your temples and leads the contact wires to what looks like a generator. Once they’re secure, Jemma holds up a bite guard and says, “Would you please open your mouth for me?”

You obey her, squeezing your eyes tightly at the sudden panic you feel, the pain you know you’ve yet to experience. She touches the side of your face, stroking light fingers over your nose. “Forgive my familiarity with you,” she says, still petting. “But when I was a child, and was scared, my mother used to stroke my face in an effort to calm me. I found it incredibly helpful. Is it all right?”

You nod; amazingly, the light touch is working to calm the fluttering of your own heartbeat. She smiles. “Good. Remember you’re among friends, and we only want to help you.”

The bite guard doesn’t choke you the same way it did before, and you lean into her hand gratefully. She pets you once, twice more – and then Sam pulls a chair up next to you. “All right, I’m ready with my first questions. We’ll start trying to guide you back as soon as Bruce injects the serum into your I.V.”

“I’m ready to start if you both are,” Bruce says. Tony flips a switch and you hear machinery hum to life. “Jarvis?”

“Recording, Sir.”

“Right. Injecting the Veritaserum now,” he says, and you watch as the needle enters the I.V. stream. “It should take effect in forty seconds or so, and then we can work with the lowest level electrical pulse. Good luck, James.”

Various versions of ‘good luck’ are tossed at you, and the last thing you see is the look on Steve’s face from the other side of the workshop glass.

~~~~

Tell me the first thing that comes into your mind, something you want to remember more than anything else.

Tired, filthy, scraped knees and fighting back, nun in the dirt lot pulling another boy off of you and you almost punch her in your own defense. She takes you with her, big building, boys’ home, sits you down next to this scrawny brat with watery eyes and a runny nose. The first night you’re there, you can’t help but crawl into bed with him to stop his shivering and you realize, as weeks pass, that you haven’t left his bed yet…

The first time is for money; the second is for Steve. Call it whatever you want, but using your mouth in a back alley paid for asthma medicines a lot easier than honest work did. And Steve – Steve had to know, had to, and yet he never judged you for it. “Just so that you come home to me,” he’d say, and hug you like your friendship was worth a lot more than the medicines…

Focus, a voice cuts in. You can do this, James. Who are you?

You speak your name aloud, and the voice praises you. Tell me what they asked of you.

Who?

Hydra. Did your masters ever ask you to do things for them? Hurt people? Do the names Howard and Maria Stark mean anything to you?

Blood-death-revenge-hatred-pain. Make it look like an accident, at night, sharp curve in the road and easy, so easy. Newspaper headline the next day and Master had been so proud. Let you stay awake a few hours more, no pain, nothing but hot food and a warm blanket because you’re always so damned cold.

Did they make you do anything else? What was it like when you were awake?

Owned. A dog, a mongrel, a showpiece. Alive only to kill names on their list, remove any obstacles for Mother Russia and Hydra’s causes.

Did you want to help them?

Wanted to be good, worthy of any scraps of affection, kicked-broken-bleeding-held down. Violated, no one gentle, nothing to make it hurt less….

What about the most recent master?

Offered you a glass of milk once when you broke into his kitchen, right before he murdered his maid for seeing the two of you together.

Did he talk to you at all?

Said I should be proud of myself, and honored. Told me I was pretty and let me sleep in his bed when he was through instead of throwing me out of his house. Talked to me.

About what?

The Canadian Shack, the Fridge, the best way for me to swallow him, the Safe House, Eden. Garrett, Coulson, the Sanctuary, secrets and lies, killing his buddy Nick. Roll me onto my stomach and isn’t it wonderful how I could kill him a hundred different ways, but all he had to do was give the command and I’d spread underneath him?

I don’t want to do this anymore.

You’re all right, James.

Don’t want to remember, want Steve to love me, wouldn’t love a whore like me, murderer, villain, evil, heartless, soulless creature. Should’ve died a hundred times…

James, no. Don’t think that way.

Can’t stop, broken heart, didn’t matter if Master let me survive, too many obstacles around me and cannot escape, even death brings no peace, the ice and waking up again. So confused, don’t belong in time or place…

Bucky, a new voice says, and you know this voice, you love this man…

Tell me what to do, Stevie?

Trust in me.

I do, but can’t ask the same of you. Hurts. Too much blood on my hands, stained, tainted, unworthy. Just an orphaned bastard that grew up into a killer. Waste of air.

Not to me.

Tired of fighting it, trying to make myself believe in anything.

Too tired to believe in me? In us?

Steve could do better.

But he loves you, the other voice says.

He’s a punk.

Jerk.

Want to smile but shouldn’t be allowed to.

Want you to smile always.

I love him. Love you, Steve. Have since the first day we met. Always wanted to be the man you could be proud of. Not, though.

You are to me. You are to the kids you took under your wing in that orphanage. You remember them? Mike and Chris and Lana, how you always got us extra food and kept us away from the bigger kids who could’ve hurt us?

Family should do that.

You always had my back.

I always will.

The voices stop speaking, but you know-you-know-you-know and you will not forget again, you’ll never forget and you will work to earn Steve, earn his love and make him proud, you want to belong to him, only.

I love you, you hear.

You sleep.

When you awaken, you’re inordinately confused as to where you are, and why you’re there. You blink a few times, bringing your eyes back into focus, and realize you can’t move your good arm because Steve’s asleep on it.

But if Steve’s on your right side, then what…?

“Any reason we’re having a group slumber party in my bed? Or am I hallucinating this?”

Steve’s eyes snap open, and he grins. “Bucky! Finally!”

He crushes his mouth to yours, and ignores the fact that you must have terrible morning breath. “You’ve been asleep for three days,” Steve says. “The serum worked perfectly, but it knocked the hell outta you.”

“Have you all been here that long?”

“After a while it got easier to stay,” Skye said, rubbing a hand across your stomach as she continues to sprawl on your left arm and the left half of your body. “We kept waking Steve by coming in and out.”

Steve slaps her hand away from you and in the process almost hits Jemma, who’s got her head pillowed in Steve’s lap. She yawns. “It was also convenient in case you needed medical attention.”

You look at Bruce and Tony, who’re snuggled in the chair in the corner, and Sam, who’s slung half on Skye and half with his head near yours on your pillow. “So I take it that it worked?”

Steve nods. “You offered a lot of information about Hydra and were able to detail a lot of the missing pieces of your past.”

“We already edited a copy and sent it to Agent Coulson and Director Fury,” Jemma says. “We know which of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bases are mostly Hydra controlled, and where to start. You retained so much data, it was amazing.”

“And… the rest?”

“Jarvis will show you the video later when you’ve gotten your strength back.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No. It doesn’t,” Skye says, and turns your face so she can put a kiss on your forehead. “You’re a good man, James, who got captured and tortured into something you aren’t.”

“Oh.” You’ve got no answer as to why she should support you. “That’s… um.”

“Just rest, Buck,” Steve says. “We’re here for you, for whatever you need.”

You’re too tired to argue; you close your eyes, and doze off again.

Chapter Text

The next time you wake up, you and Steve are alone in the bed. “I had to kick them out for a while,” Steve admits. “Hard to snuggle your boyfriend with an audience.”

You blush at the word boyfriend, but when he kisses you, you let it go. The two of you get up and he helps you to the bathroom because you’re weak as a baby. “Gonna help me shit and shower, too?”

“I hear that’s pretty typical for a ninety-five year old man,” Steve replies, and you wheeze out a laugh. “I’ll be standing right outside the door if you need me.”

You’re grateful for the escape into the bathroom alone, wash your face and brush your teeth and bathe. It’s too much effort to shave, though you’re starting to look a little wild around the edges. “Hey Steve?”

He’s in the bathroom in a heartbeat. “What’s up?”

You gesture to your face. “Think you could give me a hand with this?”

He nods, asks you to sit on the countertop. Once you’re settled, he shakes a can of shaving cream, picks up your razor, and begins to shave the fuzz off your face. The razor moves slowly, dragging over your skin, baring you to him as he works. In some ways, it’s more intimate than lovemaking. You close your eyes and swallow hard.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. This is kinda doing something for me, I guess.”

“It’s the closeness of it,” he replies, and oh. Guess you aren’t the only one affected. “I like having you like this, at my mercy.”

“You do?” your voice definitely doesn’t break or come out as a squeak. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

You open and shut your mouth and he waits for you to pull yourself together so he doesn’t nick your throat. By the time he’s done, your half-hard cock has reached full erection. “I take it that you liked the idea of me having you at my mercy?”

“I trust you to always be merciful,” you blurt out, and he kisses you, tangling your tongues together. “Steve, please?”

His hand knocks the towel from around your waist and he sinks to his knees in front of you. You scoot forward to the edge of the counter and moan as he sucks you into his mouth. “Steve…”

“Go ahead, Buck. Anytime you wanna come, just let go.”

It takes you an embarrassingly short time to spill on his tongue; he swallows and keeps sucking until the pleasure hurts. When he gets back to his feet, he kisses you, feeding you the taste of yourself. You moan, and kiss him, and reach for him to return the favor… only to realize he’s already reached his own orgasm. “Jesus.”

“What can I say?” he asks, and grins at you. “You turn me on.”

The two of you stay there, pressed together, until he kisses your nose and steps backwards. “So, a few choices. We can either go into the living room and watch the copy of your procedure, or we can order dinner in, or we can order dinner and then watch the copy. What’s your choice?”

“Food please. And then the video.”

“Jarvis? Can you order in from the deli down the street, pastrami on rye with brown mustard and pickles and the real home style potato salad? And the banana pie, if they have any. Our usual quantities.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Thanks, Jarvis.”

With that task completed, you have no other choice but to face the video and see what you said. You remember some of it, but not all of it – which, Bruce warned you, would be expected. Unlocking those memories had scrambled you again, and after watching some of your procedure, it would hopefully open up the rest of the memories for you. “How long did it take for the whole therapy?”

“Three hours. If you want to move past certain sections, I understand, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you for the good and the bad, and you deserve to see all of it for yourself.”

He holds out his hand and you take it; you trail behind him to the couch, where he’s got extra pillows and blankets and three boxes of Kleenex sitting. “Really, tissues?”

“Those are for me,” he says. “If you happen to need one, you’re welcome to them.”

He’s only half-teasing, you realize. “I’m sorry,” you say.

“For what?”

“For living the kind of life that you would cry about.”

“I’m not crying because of what you did,” he says, voice full of vehemence. “I’m crying because those fucking bastards stole your life from you. There’s a huge difference!”

You hold up your hands in supplication. “All right, I get it. I get your point.”

“You’d better,” he says, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Or else.”

“Or else, huh?”

He manhandles you onto the couch, pulling you against his chest and asking Jarvis to start the video. You spend the next hour watching yourself scream, struggle, cry, and beg because of the memories inside you, and you can’t help but bury your face in Steve’s chest for support. “I got you,” he says, wrapping his arms around you. “I’m right here.”

“How can you still want me after seeing me like that?”

“Because I’m not a shallow man, and you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I love you, Buck. You’re it for me.”

In a welcome interruption from the file, one of the Tower’s many staff members brings up your meals, and you pick at the food as you listen to more of the procedure. You can hardly bear to watch yourself on the screen. “I’m a mess,” you admit.

“Yeah. But look at what you remembered about your life. That’s a miracle in my book.”

And you still have partial recall, which gives you hope. “I want it all back,” you say, and he nods – you don’t even have to explain it to him for him to understand. “All of my life, all my time with you…”

“I want you to have that, too. I’ll give you anything, you know.”

“I have everything I could ever want with you.”

“Are you sure? It’s my job to take care of you.”

Your breath catches in your throat and your heart thumps. All you’ve ever wanted was for someone to care about you. Even if you know you're undeserving of the attention. "You do a great job at that."

"Hey," he says. "Don't lie to me, you're a terrible liar. We had a deal to be honest, remember?"

"Jesus, Rogers, I know that. Maybe I'm just feeling a little guilty for having such an amazing thing happen to me now, after all the horrible shit I did."

"So basically, people stole your whole life, turned you into an experiment, treated you like scum, and you don't think you deserve something good to happen?"

You duck your head. "Well it sounds stupid when you say it like that."

"That's because it's stupid for you to keep feeling guilty. Do you know what I see when I watch that video?"

You shake your head no. He says, "I see someone who was so darn brave, so determined not to let his enemies win, that he fought his own mind in order to regain his sense of self. That's a kind of courage most people wouldn't have, and I'm glad to call that man my friend."

"You’re biased.”

"So ask Sam. Ask Bruce, or Tony - ask the kids that were curled up in our bed because they were so worried about you, amazed at how hard you fought the brainwashing Hydra gave you. You go ask them if they think you're a bad guy, and when one of them tries to knock some sense into you, I'm going to say I told you so."

"You're being a child."

"Takes one to know one," he shoots back, and then kisses you before you can argue with him anymore. “Try to stop being such a stubborn jerk and let me love you, okay?”

“Okay,” you murmur, and he curls around you like the best kind of security blanket ever. After a short cuddle (which you refuse to acknowledge as cuddling, you’re a damn assassin, you don’t cuddle even though it feels so, so good), you watch the rest of the feed and try not to break down in tears. Steve has no such compulsions, reaching for tissues on several occasions, and if you happen to snatch one or two of them out of his hand, well… you have something in your eye, is all.

The screen finally goes blank, and you’re exhausted. “I feel like I just got ambushed,” you say, and he kisses the top of your head. “That was… I have no words, Steve.”

“I know. Bruce and Tony think that it’ll take you a few days to start remembering more of your life, but they were hoping this would jumpstart you.”

“I already remember stuff,” you say. “And some of it I wish I didn’t.”

“You knew that might happen.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “But then I look at your face, and I think it’s worth it.”

He smiles at you, soft and warm and affectionate. “I’m glad to hear that. So what do you need right now? What can I do to help?”

“I could maybe use a hug,” you say. “And… and I’d really like to get out of here for a while. Just… go for a walk, or something? Please? I’ve spent days staring out the window, and while the rooftop’s great, I just wanna be outside and watch other people and get out of my head. I need a break, Steve. And you can, I don’t know, ask Tony to completely disable my arm, or whatever, to make people safe, I’m fine with that.”

He smacks you on the forehead with his palm, not hard, but enough to make you blink at him owlishly. “You’re an idiot,” he says. “Tony hooked up all of the neural networks to give you full access to every arm he’s built for you. Do you really think he would do that if he didn’t trust you?”

“But…”

“No,” he says, cutting you off. “No buts. Deal with it.”

You huff out a breath. “So then, help me change the prosthesis into a more harmless version, and let’s bust out of this joint.”

“That I can do,” he replies.

It doesn’t take long for the two of you to swap the prosthesis – and wow, you have five different versions now, how did that happen? – for a ‘basic’ model. Or rather, basic for Stark, which means the arm’s silver and doesn’t come with missiles, guns, lasers, or grenades. You flex the light, agile machinery and say, “I kinda want to kiss the guy for these.”

“Well, don’t.”

You glance up at him and laugh at the grumpy face he’s making. “Not literally.”

“Hmmph.”

You wrap your arms around him, using the metal one to cup his ass. “It’s a really nice arm, though,” you say, squeezing. “Nice and… flexible. And I can feel all of the sensations of a real arm with it. Like this amazing ass beneath my fingers. Wanna touch it, bite it, own it.”

Steve sucks in a deep breath and groans. “Bucky. If you have any desire to leave the Tower today, you’re going to have to stop that or I’m going to throw you down and take you right here on the floor.”

“Mmm. You know, I’ve got the same serum as you do, or close enough. So if you throw me down… you know you’re not gonna hurt me, right? You can manhandle me all you want and I’m still gonna be fine.”

He moves closer to you, unconsciously, sliding his fingers into your hair and tightening them to lift your head up. “Yeah? You want me to put you down, make you beg me for more?”

“God, yes.”

He sweeps your feet out from under you, and instead of flipping backwards and away from him you just let him pin you to the carpeting. He’s solid and heavy on top of you and you move your legs to either side of his hips. “Come on, soldier,” you purr. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Needless to say, you don’t leave the Tower until much later, and when you do you might have a little more swagger in your step than before. When the elevator doors open at ground level, you stride into the room like you own it, grinning at the security team and the rest of the lobby staff.

“Would you please stop that,” Steve begs. “We live here, you know.”

“What am I doing?”

“It’s a combination of things. You keep flexing your arms like you could kill everyone as much as look at them, but the smile on your face says since you just had sex, you’ll let them live for now.”

You burst out laughing, and Steve grins. “Now there’s my Bucky.”

You tuck your hands into the pockets of your hoodie – because you can’t really expose the arm in public – and bump shoulders with him. “Fine, fine, I hear you.”

He doesn’t reach for you, but you can see in his eyes he wants to. “Let’s take that walk you wanted,” he says instead, and shoos you to the revolving front door. “I have to say, the city’s a lot different now.”

“Can’t wait to see it from your eyes, Stevie. Because if you remember, this new crazy world isn’t exactly new to me. I remember a lot of it now.”

He beams the biggest smile, and you feel like you just handed him the moon. “Yeah, that’s true. So what do you remember that you’d like to show me?”

“I think I did that upstairs,” you say, and delight in the way he turns into a tomato. “Let’s just walk, huh?”

You’re both in jeans and sweatshirts, and Steve’s wearing a baseball cap, so you’re pleasantly surprised that people don’t recognize him. “I’ve gotta say, New Yorkers haven’t changed that much. You’re walking around among them and no one pays any attention to you.”

“That’s what’s nice about New York,” he agrees. “I’m still just the kid from Brooklyn here. Now, when we’ve been required to go to the Midwest? Forget it. It’s walking around in a very public minefield.”

“Sounds like a riot.”

“Not so much.”

You pass a hot dog cart and he treats you; dirty onions and hot mustard, just the way you like them. “This takes me back,” you say, and you lick your fingers in the most sexually explicit way possible.

“What does?” he croaks, and shoots you a dirty look as you fellate your thumb. “James Buchanan,” he chastises. “You’re in public.”

You giggle. “This. Us. Walking through the city together. Remember when you were my scrawny version of Steve, and we’d play chase down the streets? It was a lot less busy then.”

“And you’d always catch me.”

“Because you couldn’t run that fast.”

“You’d buy me ice cream afterwards every time.”

“But since I was always broke, you’d share your cone with me.”

“Vanilla.”

You nod. “M’glad I remember that now.”

“I’m glad your back to share those memories with me,” he says. “I love you.”

You don’t respond aloud, but you move closer to share space with him. You know he gets it in the way he smiles at you, and you smile back.

You continue your walk, for once at complete peace.

You’re still laughing when you get back to the Tower, get into the elevator and have it take you to the common floor. But the levity doesn’t last long. Fury and Coulson are waiting for you; the rest of the Avengers – minus the Danger Twins – aren’t far behind them. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Fury demands of Steve, and you find yourself wishing you were wearing your arm with weaponry. “What the hell were you thinking, taking him outside?”

“I was thinking we needed a break, after watching the results of his procedure,” Steve says, in full Captain America voice. He even stands straighter. “And I was thinking that since I no longer work for S.H.I.E.L.D., it wasn’t your concern where we did or didn’t go.”

“Did you not hear me when I said there were assassins after him?” Fury snaps. “Did you just want to get killed out there? Maybe kidnapped, because that would’ve been even better. How stupid are the two of you?”

You blink in surprise, because, “Director, be careful – you sound like you were worried about me.”

“It seems like our team’s decided to trust you,” he responds. “And while I don’t believe you’re on our side, I’m willing to go with it for now because we can take all the help we can get.”

“And let’s not forget how much Barnes helped you thus far, Nick, by giving you pretty much every name of every Hydra agent in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony says, patting the couch cushion next to him. “Cap! Barnes! Come sit down so we can start the party more pleasantly!”

You take a seat next to Tony, and Steve sits on your other side, pinning you into the couch. “I kinda want to breathe, Steve.”

He gives you an inch of space and you sigh, shoving him over until you can claim a cushion for yourself. You then tug off your sweatshirt to reveal the black tee beneath and peel the glove off your prosthesis. You lean back into the couch and say, “Now that I’m more comfortable, do you want to tell me why you decided to give a shit about what I say? Considering that you’re right, I’m not on your side. I follow Steve’s orders, not yours.”

“So many things to say to that,” Tony mutters, and you elbow him with your good arm. “Ouch!”

“Shut it, Tin Man.”

“Tin Man!” Rhodey crows. “Oh God, that’s my new favorite.”

A sharp whistle fills the air. “Gentlemen!”

You wince at the sound and look at Skye. “Damn, you’ve got some pipes for a dame.”

“It’s a talent, you sexist pig,” she replies, cheekily. “A.C., the floor’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Coulson says. “Thanks to the data provided by Sergeant Barnes, along with what Agent May got from her interrogations with Ward, we now have a short list of the most highly-ranked Hydra agents within S.H.I.E.L.D. Our next task is to plan how to reach those agents we trust within those locations and alert them to possible takeover plans.”

“So basically you’re going to retake your agency over?” Bruce asks. “Aren’t you worried about the potential fall-out from that, the loss of life if your agents are outnumbered?”

“Each location will be getting a full scale assessment. I’ve got Hill working on the logistics,” Fury replies. “Barton and Romanov are assisting. What I’m more interested in right now is Eden.”

“Eden? Why’d you pick that location to fixate on?” Steve asks.

“Because it isn’t one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s,” Fury replies, and stares at you. “We’re guessing that it’s strictly Hydra. And there’s only one person here who’s heard of it, or knows where it is.”

Chapter Text

Everyone in the room’s staring at you, and you swallow. “I don’t actually know where it is,” you confess. “I only heard Master… goddamn it, I heard Pierce talk about it, but I’ve never been there.”

Coulson looks at you with a cross between disappointment and pity, but Fury has no such compulsions. “So it could be anywhere,” he says, keeping you on task.

“Yeah. I know Pierce had been there, though. Because he kept telling me how gorgeous it was.”

“How did he describe it, Buck?”

You close your eyes and concentrate, and this is probably a conversation you don’t want to remember but you have to, if you’re going to keep these people safe. You force yourself to see Pierce’s face, the cracks in his skin, the age showing in his hands as he pushes you where he wants you to move. “Gorgeous boy,” you mumble, repeating the words he said to you so long ago. “A gorgeous boy should be somewhere equally gorgeous, where the sun can keep you warm. You want to go to Eden with me, Soldier? Tell me you do, because it’s always warm there, and you can swim in the Devil’s hole or play on his golf course. I’ll take you there, pretty boy, just lift your leg for me like that…”

“Bucky,” Steve gasps, grabbing onto you and shaking you. “Bucky, Jesus. Enough, are you all right?”

You don’t want to open your eyes because if you do, you’ll see exactly what they think of you. Whore. “Need a minute,” you say, and open your eyes only so that you can lunge off the couch and sprint into the kitchen. When you get there, you pace back and forth a few times, then collapse face-down on the counter. “Fucking Christ,” you say, and hang onto the marble until the room stops spinning.

You aren’t left alone for long. “Hey,” Steve says, walking in behind you. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Probably said more than they wanted to know, though.”

“Buck. Why do you think Jemma and Skye and Sam piled on the bed with you, while we were sleeping? They heard everything you said before, and they didn’t judge you for it. They wanted to protect you, and they still do. And you know darn well that anyone coming at you would come through me first.”

You can’t help but smile at him. “I know. It’s just different, knowing they heard it, and then watching their faces as I say it out loud.”

“Are you okay?”

You take a few steps forward and tuck your head under his chin. He doesn’t hesitate to hug you. “This makes it better.”

He runs a hand down your spine and gives you all the time you need to calm down. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

“Ready to go back out there?”

“I guess so.”

You return to the main room, walking a half-step behind Steve. You return to your seats and thankfully, none of them address what you just said. In fact, the room’s quiet until Skye bursts out with, “Sonofabitch!”

She waves a hand at you and you realize she’s got her laptop on and is hunting online – but for what, you don’t know. “What?” you ask.

“Can you say that part about the devil again?”

“The Devil’s hole and his golf course?”

“Right,” she says, triumphantly. “Except he wasn’t talking about taking you to a resort.”

She swivels the screen around so you can all see it; splashed across the top of the page it says, ‘Devil’s Hole’ and ‘Devil’s Golf Course’. “You found them?”

“Yes,” she says. “They’re names for two of the natural wonders in Death Valley – one of the hottest places on earth. Eden’s somewhere in Death Valley, James. And without you, we’d never have found it.”

Steve wraps his arms around you and squeezes the breath out of you. “Great job, Buck!”

“Thanks,” you mumble, still completely uncomfortable. “That’s great that you found it.”

Tony has Jarvis start bringing up maps, and satellite data, and a bunch of other techie stuff you still don’t quite understand. So instead of joining in, you stand up. “I’m gonna… I’ll be in the range,” you say, and head toward the elevator. “I’ll see you all later.”

You can feel Steve get up behind you, but catch sight of Bruce’s hand on his arm. “No problem, James. See you soon.”

You’re grateful for his interference; it’s not that you love Steve less; it’s that you need space more. You take the elevator to your floor, change off the prosthesis for one with ammo, and head down to the range ten floors away from everyone else. Once you arrive, you throw yourself into a training exercise with gusto, rolling, flipping, and arching your body as Jarvis creates more and more complicated shots for you to hit. You have no idea how long you push yourself until you half-collapse on the floor in a puddle of your own sweat.

“Feel better?”

It’s Sam, not Steve, and you frown at him. “How’d you get nominated to be the one to talk to me? I thought I’d see Steve ready to drag me outta here.”

He laughs. “I told Steve you might need some time talking to someone else. Someone who might have more experience in this particular subject.”’

“Being a whore?” you ask, bitterly, and he sits on the ground beside you. “Letting people fuck you because it’s an order, not because you care?”

“Before I ever went into combat, I was an outreach worker, a licensed therapist. Do you know what that is?”

“What does that even matter?”

He ignores the fact that you’re being an asshole. “It means I’ve met people who’ve done things they aren’t proud of; children who are the victims of abusive parents, homeless people, sex workers. And sometimes, their circumstances have forced them into roles they don’t want to be in, but they feel they’ve no other choice.”

“But they had a choice! It’s a huge difference between being a prostitute and having someone hold you down and fuck you because they feel it’s their right! And every time I think about it, or say something that makes me remember what it feels like…”

“You hate yourself a little more?”

You slump down into yourself. “Yeah.”

He pats your arm – the metal one. “You ever meet a call girl before?”

“Probably.”

“You know most of them work for a guy, a pimp,” he says. “You think those girls can quit working whenever they want? That their pimps wouldn’t kill them for trying to get out of the business? It’s an ugly world out there, James, and not everyone gets choices like you think. Only the lucky ones ever catch a break.”

“So I should feel lucky?” you ask. “I should be grateful?”

“No, not at all,” he disagrees. “You go right ahead and be angry as fuck. I would be, too. I would rant and rage against those people and hate them with everything I’ve got. But you, my friend, have an option most people don’t.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, you can run away with your tail between your legs, worry about us judging you – which we aren’t, by the way. That’s one option.”

You glare at him, and he doesn’t say anything else. After a moment, you sigh and ask, “Or?”

“Or you stop worrying about the past you can’t change, and help us find a way to kill those bastards that laid their hands on you.”

You stare at the ceiling for a moment, then say, “I thought therapists were supposed to be non-violent.”

He laughs in your face. “I’m a soldier first, remember? James, you have the chance to do something most people would literally kill for: you can get even with Hydra. Why would you turn away from that chance? Get off your ass, get a shower, and go talk to Steve like a grown man. Stop hiding from your past and yeah – be damned grateful you survived it. Because you’ve got someone who loves the hell out of you, supports you, and we might not count for much, but you’ve kind of got a family who cares about you too. Everybody’s got baggage. Stop letting it rule your life.”

“You’re a shitty therapist,” you say, but you can’t help the smile that crosses your face. “Bloodthirsty, no sympathy…”

“I custom tailor my speech to everyone,” he says. “You needed a good kick in the ass. Not everyone needs the same thing.”

“Sam?”

“What?”

“I still know how to kill you thirty ways with my bare hands,” you reply, and bare your teeth at him.

Sam gets up, laughing, brushes his hands against his pants, and says, “Wow, look at the time, I’ve got to be on my way. You just keep in mind what I said, all right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He leaves, and you haul yourself to your feet. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Where’s Steve?”

“With Director Fury and Agent Coulson, still in the main room. Shall I contact him for you?”

“No, thanks. Just wanted to know where I could find him after my shower.”

“I’ll alert you if they move elsewhere in the Tower.”

“Appreciate it, Jarvis.”

You take Sam’s advice, head to your floor and shower. You dress in a pair of nice jeans, a blue striped shirt, and boots. You even comb your hair. In the elevator, you brace yourself and take deep breaths as you rejoin the group on the main floor. Steve smiles at you. “Hey. We were looking at different methods of air strikes at Eden,” he explains. “Skye thinks she located the base underground, and there aren’t too many ways to get there without blowing cover.”

You frown. “Why not just do aerial strikes? Bomb it? Not like there’s anything around Death Valley you’re going to ruin…”

“We want to know what they’ve got there. What their plans are, anything we can get our hands on to help prevent such organizations from succeeding in the future,” Coulson says. “Besides, if we bomb Eden, we won’t succeed in getting rid of Hydra. We don’t have any intel to know if their major players are onsite or not. Though I agree with you in theory.”

“Cut off one head, two more grow back,” Jemma says. “Good to see you again, James. We ordered dinner while you were gone, there’s lots of food left in the kitchen.”

You duck your head, somewhat relieved at the way no one outright mentions your vanishing act. “Thanks, I could eat something.”

You wander into the kitchen, pile a plate with Chinese food, and head back into the common room. You eat and talk at the same time, until Steve, being a damn boy scout, gives you a dirty look and you shut your mouth when you chew.

Several suggestions are thrown out; Tony’s by far the most popular, which is to retake one of the other locations first and go in undercover. And then it hits you.

“How do you all feel about me going in with Ward as bait?”

“Absolutely not!” is Steve’s first reaction, which leads you to believe you’re on the right track. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Think about it. I approach, driving a stolen truck that has S.H.I.E.L.D’s insignia all over it, dragging Ward’s unconscious body back with me. They’re gonna let me in, whether they want to or not.”

“And give me one good reason they wouldn’t kill you on sight?”

“Because I announce myself as the Winter Soldier, and tell them I’ve gathered enough intel on what’s left of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be useful. Including the fact that Nick Fury’s alive.”

“Bucky…”

“You can attack, guns blazing, within half an hour from when I get inside the building, Steve. That gives me time to figure out where to go to get to their core information centers and try to get my hands on as much information as I can. If you don’t feel comfortable, send Romanov with me. She can take care of the technical parts that I might miss. If you recall, they kept me around more for muscle than for brains. They might not realize I’m smarter than they think. Especially now that I’m not a damn zombie.”

You can see that Fury and Coulson both look interested; Steve is horrified, and the others are somewhere between. “It’s an idea,” you say, shrugging. “That’s all. Surely we can drug Ward enough to keep him down for a few hours and buy me some time…”

“You have no idea what your chances would be like when you go underground.”

“But think of how many of them I could take out,” you say, grinning. “Especially with the firepower Tony’s provided in the new prosthetics. I’m not made from the same super-serum that Steve is, but I’m damn close. You fought me, Steve. You know how hard it is to put me down!”

“It’s not the point to get you killed!”

“And I don’t want to die,” you say. “But I want to do whatever we have to do to stop every single person working for Hydra. Whether it’s by killing them, arresting them, blowing them up – I don’t give a damn. They tried to ruin me, Steve, and as some smart guy recently reminded me, I have the opportunity to pay them back for their efforts. Let me do this. Please?”

He shakes his head, his lips pressed together into a thin line. “The idea of losing you again scares the hell out of me.”

“Maybe we should table that idea for a while and work other avenues first,” Tony says, and I glare at him. “Sorry, Barnes. Let’s see if we can find a better solution first before you pick the suicide mission for your own, okay? Besides, I can’t take Cap looking like that anymore.”

You blow out a breath, ready to argue, and Steve shocks you by saying, “He’s right, though, Tony. That’s the thing I can’t get past.”

You freeze, look at Steve with wide eyes. “What?”

“I know you can do this,” he says. “It’s the most logistically sound plan we’ve come up with this far. I just… Bucky…”

You move to him and tuck yourself under his chin. “I know. You think I really want to do this?”

“Yes, you crazy jerk. I really think you do.”

“Not if it means leaving you,” I say. “But if it means saving you, then I’m all for it.”

We stand there hugging until Coulson clears his throat. “Then we need to develop a timeline for implementation, and coordinate it with our other trustworthy agents around the globe. We only get one chance at this, people, so we’d better make it count.”

Chapter Text

Death Valley’s fucking miserable, and you’re seriously reconsidering how smart your suggestion was for you to go in with Ward’s unconscious body next to you. You have no idea if the damn tires of your truck are going to make it, but you keep driving.

You’re heading straight for the coordinates Skye gave you, with only a hostage as bait, and your back up an hour away. "Not good," you mutter. "Bucky, what're you doing, you dumbass. This is hell."

You see a large ridge in the distance and you turn towards it, covering the terrain as fast as you can. As you pull up to the mountainside, you park the truck and own the door. The heat knocks you back half a step but you persevere. You walk up to a crack in the rock and touch it, feeling around for any sign of an opening.

About a hundred feet away, the rock suddenly splits in two sections, revealing itself to be a gate. Two men wearing Hydra uniforms emerge. "Halt!"

You cock your head to the side and glare at them, making no move to approach. "Who are you?"

"The Winter Soldier," you reply, allowing your Russian accent to color your tone. "Who is in charge here?"

"I am," the guard answers, which is a joke. He obviously has no idea who you are, and it’s confirmed when he says, "Don't move."

The two of them - how laughable, two of them - come up beside you and frisk you for weapons. You allow them to do so until the one gets a little too handsy and you snap his wrist. He screams and the other guard waves his gun at you. "What the fuck," he shouts, but before he can finish the sentence you have him on the ground, unconscious.

You get back in the truck and drive it into the gate, following the concrete road down beneath sea level. You can't imagine how engineers built this; Tony would probably wet himself with excitement to see the structural plans. When you get to a set of solid steel doors, you park and bang on them. It takes a minute but finally they open. You walk in to see a man staying at you, grinning. "Soldier."

"Who’s in charge here?" you repeat, not giving an inch of ground.

He smiles wider. “Your reputation precedes you, Soldier.”

You whip a gun out of its holder and aim it at him, dead-on. You see more bodies in your periphery but ignore them. “Who’s in charge here?”

He laughs, walks up to you and says, “How did you find us?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“I am, солдат,” one of the other men says, stepping into view. The word would’ve triggered you if not for Bruce and Tony and their magic, and you send out a silent prayer for their hard work. “Soldier, did you complete your mission? Identify authorization.”

“Identify authorization,” you say, straightening your spine and lowering your gun. You stand at attention, the same way you would’ve if you were still under Hydra’s influence. “Winter Soldier, Hydra mandate seven three кто eight форма nine five. Identify authorization, Master.”

“I’ll be damned,” he says. “Soldier, repeat mission parameters for Rogers, Steven and Romanov, Natalia.”

“Identify authorization, Master.”

“Standard protocol should have you still in Washington. And yet you’re in Eden, thousands of miles away.”

“Identify authorization, Master.”

“Why are you so far from home, Soldier?”

“Identify authorization, Master.”

He sighs. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Authorization Clairvoyant; Garrett, John.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, focus on the sound of his voice and realize that this is why you recognized Ward. “Authorization confirmed,” you say. “Mission objectives not accomplished; Master Pierce assassinated, parameters require evaluation and relocation to nearest Hydra facility. Nick Fury’s alive in New York. Evaluation: infiltrate and assess.”

Garrett glances around at his assembled team. He obviously trusts these men because he asks, “Fury was listed as dead…”

“Falsification. Fury, Nicholas is alive and was the individual who killed Master Pierce. Still alive: Rogers, Steven and Romanov, Natalia. Further action required.”

“Man, you’re hard-wired for that, aren’t you?”

“Unclear. Clarify.”

“This ‘master’ crap,” he says. He shakes his head. “You’ll call me John. Agreed?”

You tilt your head, assessing. “Affirmative. John.”

“And what if I told you to kill everyone in this room, Soldier? You are an убийца, are you not? Consider it an order.”

You don’t hesitate. You can’t hesitate, even though you hate what you’re about to do. This is why he allowed you to speak freely in front of the men around you; he wasn’t planning on letting them live through it. By the time you finish your thought process, you’ve got six bodies strewn around the tunnel and you’re breathing hard. You wipe a knife blade against your pants, stand up, and slide it into its sheath. “Next order, John?”

He starts to laugh. “Jesus, you’re a machine – I love it! Come with me and let’s get you somewhere that you can debrief the team.”

“Affirmative. I have something else that belongs to you.”

“What’s that?”

You tip your head in the direction of the truck; he follows your gaze to the passenger seat. “Is that…?”

“One of ours,” you say. “They tried to gather intel from him, but as far as I’m aware, they didn’t get much.”

“And how did you escape that, Soldier?”

You do a full-body shake, relax your shoulders and duck your head. When you stand up to face him again, you know you look like some sort of sweet and innocent kid, and you shyly say, “Steve… Steve says I look like his dead friend from the war, and I just needed to be rescued. Please, won’t you help me remember who I am?”

He stares at you, and while he’s awestruck by your acting skills you wipe the softness from your expression, return to the stance of a soldier and killer. “The gullibility of those so-called heroes is repulsive,” you spit, tightening your fists for effect. “They are an embarrassment and deserve to be kept beneath the great strength of Hydra!”

You hope you aren’t laying it on too thick, but he snaps off a sharp, “Hail Hydra!” as you finish… so you keep playing the game and shut your mouth. “Your next objective, John?”

“Carry him,” he says, pointing at the still-unconscious Ward. “I’ll show you where to go.”

The two of you (three, with your baggage) walk down the long hallway, and again you find yourself thanking Tony for building you an arm that can stand up to all forms of abuse. Ward’s dead weight would’ve been hellish otherwise. When you reach the end of the hall, you emerge into a series of chambers filled with machinery and maps. You force yourself not to glance around because you know he’s watching you like a hawk. As Bucky Barnes, you’d want to look at everything; as the Winter Soldier, you look at nothing and await his next command.

He leads you down more tunnels and opens a door with a swipe-key. The door hides a bedroom and small living space. “Nothing fancy, but it’s home.”

You step into his quarters and he commands, “Put Ward in my bed.”

Well, that’s telling, isn’t it? “Yes, John.”

Once you deposit him on the mattress, you roll your shoulders and turn back to Garrett. “Next objective?”

“Come with me,” he says.

The walk’s shorter this time, into a room full of computer screens and a global map. A woman and three men sit quietly, staring at you. You don’t react to them, simply stand at attention, staring at the wall behind them. Sit down, Soldier,” one says, and you don’t move.

“Sit down,” Garrett says, after a minute, and you sink gracefully into one of the chairs. “Think of these people as an extension of myself. Anything they tell you to do, you do. Understood?”

“Yes, John.”

You know what’s coming will be worse than any physical torture, because you’re going to have to answer questions. Lots of them. You aren’t surprised when the woman starts with, “How did you escape from your captors?”

You answer every question with the most honest-sounding lies you can; what makes you want to bite through your tongue is that half of what you say is true. You go into graphic detail (at the request of one of the men) about sex with Steve, and ignore the way his eyes gleam as you describe the most intimate parts. Fortunately these people cannot hear your thoughts, for they’d know you sat there planning their deaths in the most painful ways possible.

“And after you’d gained his trust, he allowed you to part from his side long enough for you to escape?”

You nod. “Fury and Coulson invited us aboard an aeroplane they called ‘the Bus’ and it was there they disclosed some of the data they’d acquired from Ward. He did not give them locations, but he said the word Eden – which I knew thanks to Master Pierce.”

“Why did you bother saving Grant Ward’s life?”

You smile, a cold killer’s smile. “Ward did not tell S.H.I.E.L.D. everything they wanted from him; it was either kill him, or take him. I thought he may be useful to me in returning to our cause.”

“Ward’s off-limits, Elizabeth,” Garrett snaps, and the woman doesn’t even bat an eye at his anger. “That was one of the rules we set, remember?”

“Of course, darling,” she replies. “Your rules. How delightfully quaint they are when they suit you.”

So you’re right; Ward’s definitely Garrett’s property. You continue to use that by saying, “If nothing else, his body would have made for a good bargaining chip, yes?”

Garrett’s out of the chair and swinging and you do nothing to block his attack. Your head snaps back and your lip splits, but instead of retaliating you lap at the wound and spit blood onto the floor. “In either scenario, our enemy does not have him and cannot use him against us. It was a strategically sound decision.”

He’s still shaking his hand from where it impacted with your jaw, and you hope he broke his damn fingers. “Grant Ward is none of your concern. But as your master, I order you to protect him with your life, if need be.”

“Yes, John.”

They keep questioning you until a faint beeping interrupts you. “What’s that?” one of the unnamed men asks.

“Nothing,” Garrett says. “Keep explaining, Soldier.”

“No, John, it’s not ‘nothing’. What the hell is that?”

The beeping continues, gets louder, and then turns into a steady siren’s wail. Within ten seconds, the entire building shudders above you. “What the hell is that?” the man shouts again.

“That,” you say, calmly lifting your arm and activating the laser feature, “is the Avengers.”

You fire, splattering his brains across the wall behind you and grin as all hell breaks loose.

Garrett slams a knife into your side as he flees the room, but you hardly feel it; you’d go after him but that’s not your priority. You yank the blade out and return to the room with the maps and files, pulling the data drive out of the tiny storage area in your arm. You also pull out the comm unit and slip it in your ear. “Jarvis, are you there?”

“I’m relieved to hear your voice, Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis says, and you sigh in relief. “Are you ready for my assistance?”

You head toward the mainframe of the computer, pulling open a panel and sliding the data drive into the slot. “Yeah, Jarvis, and trust me – it’s good to be heard. Tony says you’ll be able to read everything from here?”

“Correct, Sergeant. Agent Romanov is on her way to your position to assist.”

As the door flies open behind you, you aim again – but it’s actually Romanov. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asks, arching a delicate eyebrow at you.

“Not if you’re here to take over the boring stuff and let me go play with the rest of the children,” you snipe back, and stand up. “Do you need anything else from me?”

“No,” she says. “Jarvis will let me know if he needs anything done manually, which I’ll handle.”

You’re very glad Jarvis is in charge; that way the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents can’t fuck with the data and forget to share it. “Right. Yell if you need help.”

She scoffs and you can’t help laughing as you run out the door and into the firefight. The violence you see (and help cause) doesn’t bother you as much as it probably should, but you can’t help wincing at the sounds of the dying around you.

“Not the same as war, is it,” Steve says, and you hear him both in your comm unit and down the hall. “I was worried about you.”

“I didn’t make it this long by being a helpless dame,” you say, and shoot a Hydra agent over his shoulder. “I can keep up with you and the rest of the team.”

Steve rolls his eyes, and the two of you head down the hallways together, picking off targets the same way you did in Germany. “Just like old times! I’ve got your back!” you shout, when you and he fight your way out of a mob.

“Normally you were at a distance, covering my back!” he says in return. “I spent less time worrying about you that way!”

“Oh my God, you’re worse than my mother,” you say, punching one of the Hydra agents in the face and using your metal arm to lift another off his feet and throw him into an influx of soldiers. “Please tell me you didn’t spend the whole trip here biting your fingernails over me?”

“I promised not to lie to you,” he says, and uses his shield to whack a guy. “So you’re right, I can’t say it. Sorry, sweetheart.”

“Would you two please stop flirting on the open channel?!?!?”

“What’s the matter, Hawkeye?” you ask, even though Steve’s endearment has your cheeks turning red. “Afraid you’ll hear something adult-rated?”

“Fuck you.”

“Nope, that’s Cap’s job,” Tony’s voice chimes in. “And that’s why the Tower is soundproofed. I...”

His voice cuts out and you snap, “Iron Man, come in!”

Nothing. Your heart plummets into your feet. “Jarvis! Where the hell is Iron Man?”

Jarvis’ voice cuts through the tension. “Sergeant Barnes, in these close, low quarters, Sir had to land in order to fight a sentient machine. The suit he’s wearing has been compromised.”

You yank your arm to your chest and crush someone’s windpipe in the process. “Take me to him, Jarvis!”

“Two hundred feet ahead of you, through the double doors,” Jarvis says. “Hurry, please, Sergeant Barnes…”

You look at Steve, who says, “I’m with you,” and then the two of you are running, shooting and ducking as you go. “We’re in a damn shooting gallery!” Steve says, as a bullet grazes your good arm. “Faster!”

You don’t have time to think about the body count in the hall as you throw yourself through the double doors, rolling back to your feet and continuing to run. “Jarvis?”

“Thirty meters.”

The two of you skid to a stop in what looks like a cafeteria, and you see them; Tony, stripped out of his suit to the waist, giant metal claws from some nightmarish machine pulling the rest of the pieces away. While Steve separates from you to destroy the robot… thing… you deal with saving Tony.

Behind Tony stands Garrett, a gun held to Tony’s head. “I should’ve known you were lying,” Garrett says, swinging Tony so that the engineer’s body blocked any potential shot. “Though I gotta give you credit, man. I bought every piece of shit you shoveled at me.”

“That’s my job,” you say.

“And all of the things you told us about how Captain America likes to fuck you, wow. Don’t know how you shared all of that about yourself.”

“What?”

“Not now, Steven,” you growl. To Garrett, you say, “It didn’t really matter what I shared, since none of you would live to repeat it.”

“And yet, here I am,” he says. He presses the gun harder to Tony’s skull and you’re furious. “Look at you, Soldier. All this time, you’ve been something out of nightmares, that Hydra agents told each other to scare each other. But you’re just a man; not a particularly good one at that.”

“But I’ve got one thing over you,” you tell him, and he laughs.

“What’s that?”

“I’m still breathing,” you say. With that, you swing your arm up and fire several rounds directly at Tony’s chest.

Your aim is true; the bullets hit Tony directly in the arc reactor, ricocheting off the artificial heart and forcing you to duck. And while the bullets themselves don’t affect the two men in front of you, the velocity behind the bullets surely does; just enough to throw them both off balance while you take a running leap at them.

Garrett’s dead before the three of you hit the ground.

“Oh my God, Tony!”

You look up to see Steve on his knees by Tony’s side; the engineer’s gasping for air, halfway to a panic attack and you curl your body around his. “Breathe, Tony,” you say, wrapping your arms around him. “We’ve got you, just breathe.”

“Fuck,” he croaks. “You just fucking shot me in the chest. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Remember what you told me?” you ask. “About the arc reactor? That it would survive a nuclear weapon, even though you’d melt?”

“I didn’t expect you to test that theory out, jackass!”

“Didn’t have any other options,” you reply. “And besides, I don’t miss.”

“Tony, can you get up?” Steve asks, cutting off any additional bickering.

He struggles to his feet, winded, but pulls himself together in a hurry. “I’m useless down here,” he says, cursing. “The suit’s trashed.”

“We’ll get you out,” you promise, and Steve nods. “We’ll keep you safe.”

“I think you just did,” he replies, clasping a hand on your shoulder. “You just saved my life, Barnes.”

“I told you: I owe you a life debt. That’s forever, okay? I’ll always save your ass.”

He grins at you and says, “Then get my ass out of here in one piece.”

“With pleasure. Steve? I’ll draw fire and you get Tony to the main gate.”

“Bucky…”

“I’m not arguing with you about this,” you say. “Do it. I’ve got the sniper skills and the close quarter hand-to-hand skills to make this happen.”

He grits his teeth but for once, takes the order from you as though you were his commanding officer. You throw yourself into the hall, back into the fray, and lay cover for the two of them as they run past you. Or rather, as Steve drags Tony out. You see them round the corner and follow, firing at every agent that moves as you pass. You hear Romanov’s voice in your ear telling you all to get out, that Jarvis has everything and is uploading the self-destruct virus to the base.

Steve and Tony make it outside, and you’re seconds behind them. So it stuns you for a moment when the ceiling tile above you shifts and Ward drops in front of you. “Where’s Garrett?” he screams, crashing into you. “Where’s John?”

You twist, flip him over your shoulder in a classic move but he counters with his own weight and tries to put you on the ground. “Down the hall,” you sneer. “Why don’t you run along and join him?”

“You fuck,” he says, hitting you with a swift uppercut. “You miserable fuck, he was all I had!”

You realize, the more you fight him, that this man isn’t motivated by loyalty to Hydra, but love for the commanding officer you killed. And Ward’s a damn good fighter. You sweep his feet and he rolls away from you, but instead of coming back at you he pulls a gun from his tac gear. “If we’re going to die, I’m taking you with me,” he shouts, and fires.

You twist to deflect the round with your prosthesis, but this gun isn’t anything you’ve seen before. A luminescent round ejects from the muzzle, slamming into your arm at high velocity. Your arm reverberates and then – to your horror and dismay – goes dead. “What the fuck is that?” you say, fending off his fresh round of advances.

“Night-night gun,” he sing songs, and fires at you again.

This time, you can hardly twist into the path of the bullet, allowing it to hit your already-deadened arm. You stumble back from the force of it; stumble as he slashes a knife down at your face. He misses you by mere inches and you tackle him, hoping that you can pin him down and snap his neck. You have him in the right position when he lurches, twists, and slams the knife upwards into your ribs. “Say goodbye, Soldier.”

You sprawl next to him, choking on the blood that’s already filling your lung. You won’t be able to deflect another shot, and all he has to do is raise his arm and fire and…

The shield hits him solidly in the chest, the force of it knocking him backwards and to the ground. It’s Steve who jumps over you and does what you could not; he wraps his hands under Ward’s jaw and pulls sideways.

You barely hear the crack over the sound of your own hacking.

“Bucky… Jesus Christ, Bucky!”

“Couldn’t move m’ arm,” you say, and cough a mouthful of blood out onto your chest. “Steve…”

He gives you a quick once-over, slides the knife out of your chest with shaking fingers. “I’ll get you out of here; just hold still while I pick you up.”

“Get y’r shield. Protect... Jarvis…”

He gapes at you. “What?”

“Get…”

“Fuck the shield!” he snaps. “We’re getting out of here!”

“Won’t make it,” you say, dizzily. “Get…”

You can’t finish because you’re coughing, and he’s picking you up like a bride and running toward the exit. “Not enough time,” you think you say, and then Jarvis’ virus detonates and the whole building collapses upon the two of you.

Chapter Text

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

You open one eye, slowly, taking in the room around you. It’s cold, and white, and sterile, and for one terrifying moment you think that all of it was just a dream, a vision of something false, that you’re waking up from the long cold sleep again and…

“James?”

You shoot up in the bed with a gasp, reaching out to fight off the intruder but you hear, “James! It’s Jemma! You’re all right!”

You pause, looking around frantically, and you don’t care how you sound when you beg, “Steve?”

“James, you need to calm down, your heart rate is through the roof,” she says, and moves close enough to run her fingertips over the bridge of your nose. “Steve’s fine. He’s fine, do you understand me? We made him go shower and sleep. He’s been an almost permanent fixture by your bedside and we needed him to go take some time for himself. Would you please calm down for me?”

You close your eyes and lean into her hands, because this is Jemma, one of the baby agents, and you’re safe. “What happened?” you ask.

“The short version, we managed to clear all of Hydra out of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she says, “but I know that’s not what you’re interested in. While you and Steve were in Death Valley, the facility collapsed on top of you. It took us nearly three hours to dig you out, and if it weren’t for the both of you having super-human healing capabilities, you’d be dead.”

“Ward stabbed me,” you say. “Steve… he came back, even though it could’ve killed him…”

“That’s what people who love you do,” she interrupts. “They come back for you; they don’t give up on you. Once we got the two of you out, we brought you back to New York. Steve wasn’t injured as badly as you were, so he’s been awake for a few days waiting for you.”

“S’he okay?”

“He’s perfectly fine,” she replies, and you take a great breath of relief. She continues to pet you and you don’t call her attention to it, in case she stops. “You, on the other hand, were a disaster. Punctured lung, skull fracture, broken pelvis, and lacerations along your right leg – some that were inches deep. I think somehow you managed to get on top of Steve and protect him from the worst of the fallout. As I said, you’re very lucky to be alive.”

You don’t remember any of that. “I don’t remember.”

“Something tells me this is the one time you probably want to forget.” She turns away from you and you whine at the loss of her hands. “Oh, you great baby, I’m just going to step outside and call the Tower, to let them know you’re awake.”

“Where are we, then?”

“You’re on the Bus. We have some of the best tech here, and this cleanroom is one of the best places for you to heal. The Tower’s only a twenty minute drive away.”

“Jemma?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

She smiles at you. “Thank you for saving the world. I think you should consider yourself a proper hero, now, in case you had any doubts. In fact, I think Tony’s been working pretty hard to get you permanently added into the club.”

Whatever look you have on your face has her laughing, and she steps outside to place a call.

You flop backward onto the bed, a hundred feelings hitting you at once; relief, joy, excitement, and love being among the biggest. You know you’re smiling but you can’t make your face do anything else. And while you’re still in the depths of your own thoughts, you hear, “Don’t strain yourself.”

Steve.

“I thought it should’ve taken you twenty minutes to get here, it’s been no more than five,” you say, staring at him like a drowning man does a life preserver.

“I had a faster mode of transportation to get me here,” he says, and Tony walks in behind him in the full Iron Man suit. “And honestly, that took too long.”

“Thanks a lot, Steve,” Tony says. “Jarvis, did you hear that? Steve called us slow!”

“I think we should let him have this one, Sir.”

Tony shakes his head and walks further into the room, but you only have eyes for Steve. In fact, it’s like nothing else exists in your universe at this moment except for the man who brought you back from the verge of death, desolation, and pain – and gave you a whole new life, and love.

“Tony, get out,” Steve says, not an ounce of manners or anything else in his voice. He sounds like sandpaper on gravel. “Now.”

“Ooh, Jarvis. We’re going to have to miss the romantic reunion scene,” Tony says, but winks at you. You laugh, but you’re already reaching for Steve, and don’t pay attention to Tony’s departure.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Steve says, sitting on your bed. He leans over you, one arm on either side of your shoulders and bending forward so your noses rub against each other. “Thought fate had been cruel, to take you from me not once, but twice.”

“They’re gonna have to try harder to split us up,” you say, and it’s a promise to him, an I do commitment summed up in so few words. “All I could think of was saving you.”

“I felt the same way. I would do anything for you.”

“God, Steve, don’t you know I feel the same? That I’d take any hit for you? I’ve felt like this ever since we were kids.”

He crawls onto the bed with you – a feat, considering how damn tall he is – and curls up next to you, touching the side of your face with tentative fingers. “I love you.”

You lean into his space, resting your head on his shoulder and he strokes your head. You realize that he’s not playing with your hair like he normally does, and then it strikes you as to why. “Did they shave my head?”

“Yeah. Jemma had to, there was fluid building and…”

He chokes off with a shuddering sob and you wrap your arms around him. Neither of you speak while he pulls himself together. Quietly, you say, “You don’t have to put on a brave face for me.”

“I know,” he replies. “But we came so close this time, Buck. I couldn’t imagine this century without you in it.”

“Me either with you.” You give him a hug. “But my hair’ll grow back, and eventually I’ll stop aching every time I move; and I’ve got both my arms and legs in working order again, thanks to the Tin Can eavesdropping in the hallway…”

“Hey!”

You and Steve both laugh and Tony sticks his head around the corner. “I resent that,” he says, and grins at you. “I was doing some simple reconnaissance. The team back at the Tower wants updates on how the Winter Soldier kicked ass and rescued Captain America.”

“Tony,” you groan. “Really? That’s ridiculous.”

“Actually, it’s not,” he said. “In fact, once all of the World Security Council’s files and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files leaked, we decided to throw another few logs into the fire. Come to find out, there’s now confirmation that the Winter Soldier exists… and he’s actually Bucky Barnes. And that he recovering from being tortured and brainwashed, and just helped take down the organization that held him hostage for seventy years.”

You blink at him. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says, still grinning. “So now everybody that wanted to go after you knows you weren’t acting on your own will… and that if anyone comes after you in the future, you’re a damned hero. And as an Avenger – which, welcome, by the way – no one’s going to ever be able to touch you because you’re part of us, and we protect our own.”

“Tony…” Steve starts.

“Pepper’s going to make the two of you do a press conference so I’d get prepared for that.”

“Tony…?”

“And you can decide at that time whether or not you want to tell the world you’re banging each other like porn stars.”

“Tony!” Steve shouts, and covers his face. “For the love of all things holy, please stop talking!”

“I think we should tell ‘em,” you say to Steve, ignoring Tony’s cackling. “That way I don’t have to shoot people who try to pick you up.”

“Oh, Barnes, Barnes! You’re a man after my own possessive heart.”

“Shut up, Tony,” you say, and snuggle your face against Steve’s. “Come on, Stevie, whaddya say? Want to announce to the world that you’re not the pristine little angel they all think you are?”

“I don’t understand why people thought that,” he complains. “I was in a damn war, for heaven’s sake.”

“You’re missing the point,” you say. “You want to let people know whether or not I’m…?”

“A jerk?” he asks. “Because you’re a jerk if you think I’m going to give anyone a chance at you. They’re going to know you’re mine, Bucky, as surely as I sit here.”

Something warm pricks at your soul. “Okay then,” you say, and smile at him. “It’s official. I’m yours.”

Tony makes a gagging noise, says, “Oh my God, the feelings, I have to leave.”

“Bye, Tony!”

When you’re alone again, you ask Steve, “So does this mean I’m kind of in the clear?”

“Nick and I had a long, long talk once I got out of the hospital,” Steve says, and by the tone of his voice you’re sorry you missed that conversation. “I think Tony threatened him, too, to be honest.”

“Too?”

“Hmm?”

“You threatened Nick Fury?”

“Maybe,” he says, and then pouts when you laugh. “Bucky, you almost died trying to get your memories back; almost died saving my life and Tony’s. Then you almost died under the building’s collapse. I think whatever’s left of S.H.I.E.L.D. owed you for everything you did to deconstruct the secret terrorist organization growing within its ranks.”

“Boy scout,” you say fondly. “Still sticking up for the little guy.”

“You’re not such a little guy,” he says, and you gape at him. “What?”

“Steven! Did you just make a dick joke?”

He blushes. “Was it terrible?”

“Oh my God, this is why everyone thinks you’re some kinda pretty virgin who needs his cherry popped,” you say, and laugh until you can’t breathe.

He pokes you in the nose. “When you get outta here, you can help me disprove that theory.”

“Oh, come on, not fair,” you say. “I feel like I just got a building dropped on me, I’m not ready for that kind of exercise yet.”

As if on cue, you hear, “Jemma says we can take him home in forty-eight hours if you two behave in there and don’t pull his stitches out!”

Tony continues to shout from around the corner and you ignore him, kissing Steve leisurely. “That’s a promise until I’m back to feeling like a reasonably-whole person again instead of road kill,” you say, and slide your tongue into his mouth. “Agreed?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Chapter Text

Three weeks later

You kind of hate Pepper Potts.

Sure, the woman has amazing taste, but. She’s decided to make you the ‘dark’ to Steve’s ‘light’; You’re wearing the a black button-down dress shirt, with a black and grey striped tie; the tightest black dress pants you’ve ever had on your body, and black dress shoes. Your hair’s grown back and is styled like you had in the forties. The shirt hides most of the metal of your arm, but instead of giving you a full glove, she’s given you some sort of torn leather contraption that shows off your metal knuckles.

Steve, however, is wearing tan pants and a damned light blue sweater vest that makes him look like a teacher. But the hot teacher you want to fuck through the school desk. You keep staring at him; the only good thing about the whole mess is that he keeps staring back. “You look amazing,” he says, raking his eyes over your body. “I mean, you look like something right outta my fantasies.”

“Ditto,” you croak.

And oh. Maybe Pepper’s a more evil woman than you thought. “How did she know what to dress us in?”

“I would be Jarvis and Stark had a hand in it,” Steve mutters, darkly. “So much for those sound-proofed walls.”

You yank at your tie and – like some sort of fashion demon – Pepper’s there slapping your hand away. “Don’t touch yourself,” she orders. “Not once. Don’t touch your hair or any other part of you that you could wrinkle. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am!” you absolutely do not cower. You used to kill people for a living, for God’s sake.

But then – you also know the benefit of strategic retreat…

She fixes you with a few last nudges to fabric and then shoves you toward Steve. “You’re on, you two. Try to behave yourselves.”

“Thanks, Pepper,” he says, all sweet and innocent sounding.

You glare at Steve, and he tugs on your metal arm, leading you into the press conference. And when you get onto the stage, he doesn’t let go. You sit between him and Tony, of all people, and on Steve’s other side sits Coulson.

It takes you a minute or two to disentangle from him, and you’re awkward and uncomfortable sitting in front of the cameras, the crowd of people in the audience. The whole idea of the press conference wasn’t as intimidating as actually doing it. You glance at the reporter – Diane Sawyer – and work hard at smiling instead of throwing up on your feet.

You do your best to not embarrass yourself, answer as primly as possible – and Steve and Tony are both looking at you funny – so you don’t do anything horrifying. And it’s all going pretty well until you reach up with your left arm to wipe at your forehead, because you’re sweating like a dog in the heat.

“Sergeant Barnes, do you find yourself acclimating to the world around you more clearly now that you’ve been reunited with Captain Rogers?”

There’s something about the sincerity in her tone that makes you want to squirm. “Yes, ma’am,” you say. “Steve and I were best friends as kids, fought in a war together, and pretty much lived in each other’s pockets for years. There’s a lot of history between us, and it’s good to have someone who knows me that well around now.”

“So even though you were kept in and out of cryostasis over a seventy year span, you still remembered the Captain from before?”

“I… yes, ma’am. It’s hard to explain, but during a particular mission, Steve said something that gave me a flash of those years gone by. The longer they kept me awake, the more I started to remember.”

“And Mr. Stark was able to help you regain your memories completely?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you say. “Along with a team of awfully smart people who know way more about science than I do.”

“That’s somewhat amazing, Sergeant. For you to have been brainwashed for seventy years and still remember Captain Rogers so well.”

“Well, it helps that I was stupid in love with him even when we were kids, ma’am. I don’t think another seventy years would change that.”

The room goes silent, so much that you can hear your heart beating in your ears – and then explodes into noise at once. It takes a minute for the uproar to die down enough for the woman to ask, “Sergeant Barnes, are you admitting to being a homosexual?”

Steve’s got his hand on your knee now; he’s squeezing so tightly you’re glad for the serum so you won’t bruise. “No ma’am,” you say. “But Tony was kind enough to tell me that there’s a different word for what I am – bisexual. I dated an awful lot of ladies back in the forties, and I don’t regret a one of ‘em.”

“And Captain Rogers, how did you react learning that your childhood friend was, in fact, in love with you?”

“Well, after I stopped thinking I was having some sort of hallucination, I suppose I reacted just fine,” Steve says. “I never thought he would love me as much as I loved him.”

More uproar from the audience. The woman holds up a hand, trying to calm the crowd, and you suddenly wish for one of your weaponized arms. “I want to shoot my way out of here, swear to God,” you mutter to Tony, who elbows you. “Stark! Make it stop!”

Tony clears his throat, starts talking, and ironically that settles the audience down. “Look, we know that these were things not discussed back in the forties, so I’m sure you all can understand what bravery it took my teammates to face this, among all the other things they missed hearing about. I know my life’s been a matter of public record since I was born – but it doesn’t mean you ever get completely comfortable with it.”

“That comment leads me to believe the Avengers aren’t concerned about the relationship between Sergeant Barnes and Captain America, then?”

“Hell no,” Tony says, grinning. “Rogers needs someone to shake the stiffness out of him, and Barnes needs someone to help him settle down.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” you snipe, and Tony laughs. “Look, I’ve had a rough go of the last seventy years, to say the least. I think figuring out whether or not I want to fall for my best friend is the least of my worries.”

“Because of your past with Hydra?”

You grit your teeth and nod. “I’m not proud of what I was; it doesn’t matter whether or not I was in control of what I was doing, because I still did terrible things. I know what dreams I have when I sleep at night, and I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. Steve’s pretty much the only person who’s kept me sane while I’ve been remembering what kind of weapon I was used for.”

“I think that’s enough of that line of questioning,” Coulson adds, giving her a stern look. “Sergeant Barnes has been cleared of any charges pending his past actions. He was a victim of Hydra, not a member of the organization.”

“And,” Steve adds, “I’d really prefer you to lay off him. Since he’s my fiancé and all.”

You blink, stupidly. “I’m sorry, what now?”

“Fiancé,” Steve repeats. “We’re going to get married, since the great state of New York has legalized gay marriage.”

The screams start again and you flap your arms for silence. “Now wait just a damned minute, Rogers,” you say, “wouldn’t it have been nice to ask me first before announcing that?”

“Bucky,” he says, and grins. “You’re forever telling me how you’re not a dame. Do I look stupid to you? ‘Course I’m not going to ask, I’m just going to tell you: you and I are getting married. Do you really think I’d give you the chance to say ‘no’?”

You can’t help it, you start to laugh, and Steve takes it as the perfect opportunity to lean over and kiss you on live television. “Never change, Steven,” you say, blushing as he kisses you again.

“I promise I won’t. Not until the end of the line.”

Chapter Text

“Oh my God, stop squirming!”

You eel away from Skye, using your metal arm to deflect the comb she’s waving at you. “You don’t want to get married looking like you just got stuck in a fan, do you?”

“Steve likes my hair like this! Also, I’m not some fashion model that needs to be fussed over!”

“With your ass, you’re definitely model material. Now park it in a chair before I get rough with you.”

A throat clears behind us and I see Tony, holding up a tiny video cam. The bastard says, “And this, people, is how we see the fearsome Winter Soldier on his wedding day.”

“Blow me,” you snap, and while you’re distracted Skye sits in your lap, knees on either side of your legs, lifts your chin with her fingers and parts your hair down the center. The woman has amazingly strong thighs because you can barely move. But you still say, “Really? This is my life?”

“Get used to it,” Tony replies. “At least Skye and Jemma are helping you and not Nat. Or Pepper, for that matter.”

You shudder. You’d rather spar with Romanov for days then be locked away with Tony’s ex-girl-slash-best-friend. “Point. I’m glad they decided to dress Steve.”

“Steve’s not a giant pain in the ass,” Skye says.

You leer. “That’s what you think – OUCH!”

You rub at your scalp where she yanks your hair by force. “Oh, sorry,” she coos. “Did that hurt?”

You grumble quietly to yourself; it’s safer that way. As you give yourself over to being groomed like a monkey, Jemma comes back in the room. “We’ve got about ten minutes. James, why is it that we have to hold you down in order to dress you? Are you a child?”

You blow a raspberry at her and she laughs. Meanwhile, Skye’s got your hair done and – you hate to admit – you look pretty darn good. “I still don’t see why you wouldn’t cut it,” she fusses. “I mean, you can pull off the long-haired rocker look, but…”

“Because Steve likes it longer,” you say.

Tony cracks an imaginary whip at you, complete with sound effects, and you flip him off out of spite.

“Both of you!” Jemma says, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her smile. “Behave yourselves! Tony, do something useful instead of being aggravating, won’t you?”

He waves the camera. “I’m multitasking– and I’m getting blackmail material for later.”

You laugh, and then Barton’s banging on the door telling you it’s time, and then – somehow – your feet carry you to Steve’s side in front of a minster. There are a lot of words spoken, but only four of them matter:

“I do.”

“I do.”

And when Steve dips you and kisses you, you feel nothing more than a great sense of relief – and the perfect feeling of coming home after being lost for a long, long time.