Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam Wilson

“Sarah, I’m sorry but you know I can’t make it.” Sam sighs into the phone. 

Her berating voice responds immediately. 

“Now hang on, you told me yesterday that you can’t handle another meeting. I thought you were sick of everything going on. Now you can’t get a day off for AJ’s birthday?”

Her tone is harsh, biting. He’s too tired for it today. 

“You know these are important.” He protests. “It’s my job—”

“Your job is to be Captain America. The people’s hero. Well you sure ain’t bein’ with them recently.”

“My job is to help people when they need it, and right now there’s a lot of people who need it. That’s what the meetings are about.” He finishes. 

He’s not going to budge on this, and a glance at his watch tells him that he’s run out of time to tell her as much. 

“Listen,” He sighs again. “I’m sorry I can’t make it. I really am. But I’ve got a long day tomorrow, and I’ve really got to go.”

The line is quiet as Sarah’s silence speaks for her. 

“Sarah?”

“Fine Sam.” Her voice is defeated. “I guess we’ll see you whenever you decide we’re worth your time again.”

The line goes dead. Sam pulls his phone away from his face, noting the end call screen on it before dropping it on the couch like a discarded wrapper. Used. Worn out. Walked all over. 

Much like himself. 

His watch glares up at him, angrily ticking away his precious hours of sleep. 

8:45 pm.

It’s not very late, but he has a full day of training and briefings to walk through tomorrow. He wasn’t lying to Sarah, it’s all for a good cause. But he is expected to be at the Air Force base outside of D.C. at 4 am, and he is already exhausted. 

Just keeping up with the onslaught of texts and calls that never end on his phone is a lot. Actually meeting with people and sorting through the politics of helping people is even more. He muses that it’s like he’s sinking in a boat with only a thimble to bail himself out. 

Sarah is an unnecessary hurricane on top of it all.

Sam rubs a hand across his face. If only his migraine would go away. If only he could have a break for one day. 

Of course he misses Sarah, Cass, and AJ. He wants nothing more than to be hopping on a plane at 4 am to fly straight to New Orleans instead. He doesn’t want to be missing AJ’s first birthday in five years, but there is too much going on. Too much to do. Too much too much too much…

His groan echoes around his empty hotel room. 

Just then his phone starts ringing. 

“Who is it this time—“ He swears. 

Only it’s not a call, but a reminder alarm.

Sharon - 9:00

Damn it. 

He’d told her he could meet up with her tonight. 

Damn it damn it. 

He picks up the phone, ignoring the three new emails, to send a text to her, mentally composing it in his head. Hey Sharon, I’m so sorry, but things came up tonight and I’ll have to cancel…

His fingers sluggishly move across the keys, and before he’s finished typing it he stops. 

...I guess we’ll see you whenever you decide we’re worth your time again…

Sarah is just mad at him. It happens. But maybe she has a point this time. Maybe he was...no. It’s fine being busy. He has a life for Pete’s sake. It’s not a bad thing!

But...maybe he could sacrifice a few hours of sleep. For Sharon. Well, he’d feel horrible canceling again. His stomach twists in anticipation. 

A new message forms in the text screen. 

“Hey Sharon, running a bit behind. Be there soon!”

He sighs, looking wistfully at his undisturbed bed. Eventually, he stands and begins getting ready to go. 

____________________________________

“I never pegged you as the type of person to play rugby.” Sam chuckles, taking a glance out the window. Sharon moved back to living just outside of D.C., and the lights from the National Mall sparkle in the night like a dreamy painting. It reminds him of the lightning bugs that hovered over the dock on lazy summer nights growing up. 

“Yeah well,” Sharon shrugs, pushing her hair behind her ear and biting back a smile. “When no one takes you seriously in high school because you’re a cute little blonde you have to find creative ways to make them listen.”

“Oh yeah,” He snorts. “Creative. I’m just glad I didn’t go to school with you.”

“Why’s that?” She smiles. 

“I never listened to anyone!” He laughs. 

Sharon joins him in laughter, and Sam admits it’s good to see a genuine smile on her face. 

It’s been too long. 

He decides it’s good he didn’t cancel on her tonight. He hadn’t been expecting her to reach out so soon after her pardon, but Sharon has been asking him for weeks to get together. She said she wanted to take some time to remember Steve and Iron Man and everyone else who had given their lives in defense of the Earth. 

They deserve being remembered always, and we haven’t had a chance to talk about it. She texted one day, and he agreed. 

It was just unexpected. Sharon seemed more of a lone wolf now. It was good to see her soft side again. 

“Give me a second, I’ll grab us some drinks. She says, standing. “Keep helping yourself to the view, I’ve seen you eyeing it.”

He chuckles as her footsteps recede into the kitchen. 

Leaving his phone on the coffee table, Sam does take the invitation and slides the balcony door open to invite the summer night in. Or maybe he’s inviting himself out. Either way, it’s breathtaking. 

Sharon lives near the bank of the Potomac, across from D.C.. As Sam inhales, he catches the sweet yet murky smell of the river floating through the air. A thousand memories flood through him, each webbing together to form one cohesive thought of home. Of being near the water. 

But it’s different too. Here there’s enough lights piercing through the darkness to make the constellations jealous. It’s not as much as New York or Vegas, but that’s okay. He doesn’t have much of a taste for the big or showy anyways. D.C. is nicer. It’s cleaner. 

For a few minutes, Sam enjoys the gentle breeze and the hum of a distant city. It’s calming, like he could close his eyes and drift away into the ambiance. He wishes the turmoil squashed in the back of his mind would pay attention and follow suit. 

Sharon’s footsteps reappear behind him, and the blonde joins him on the balcony. 

“I told you it was nice, didn’t I?” She grins at him. “The drinks are inside when you’re ready, by the way.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that one.” He glances back. “But damn, this is a view I could get used to.”

“Why don’t you?” She asks, leaning on the railing. 

“What do you mean?”

“You’re still living in Louisiana right?” She flicks a curious eyebrow up. 

“Sort of...” He mumbles looking away. 

...Well you sure ain’t bein’ with them recently…

He rolls his eyes.

“So why don’t you move back to D.C.?” Sharon presses. “I don’t know how the whole—“ She waves a hand in a circle, gesturing at him. “—cap thing works, but I’m sure you’re needed here.”

“I’m needed in a lot of places.” He sighs. 

And then the lump of guilt in his throat goes stiff because another voice flashes through this mind. This one is gruff and quiet, but it echoes through him and pierces his heart. 

“Sam!” 

An all too familiar, deep voice stands out above the pressing crowd of fans gathered around the Smithsonian entrance, desperately hoping to grab Sam’s attention. He glances around him, but doesn’t see anyone he knows. The constant nagging on his mind is really starting to get to him. 

“Sam!” 

There it is again. Sam stops this time, turning back just in time to see Bucky Barnes firmly but gently push through the last of the Captain America fans. A stupid grin splits his face as he approaches Sam, arms outstretched for an embrace.

Sam is too surprised to smile back before they collide, but manages to find himself in time to hug his friend back. 

“What are you doing here man?” He asks more accusingly than he means to. 

Bucky’s smile wavers a hint of a fraction. Just enough for someone who knows him really well to pick up on. 

“I came to see you! I—we haven’t talked in a while.”

The crowd persists, pressing in step by step towards them like night encroaching on day. They shout and cheer, some even insult. Anything to grab Sam’s attention. 

Bucky’s hands find his pockets and he stuffs them inside.

“Look, I’m sorry this probably isn’t the best timing—“

“No. It’s not.” Sam cuts him off. The other meeting attendees move towards the entrance, leaving him behind to deal with his friend.

“Well how was I supposed to know?” He asks. “I heard you were going to be in D.C. today, and I needed—I didn’t know how else to talk to you…”

Sam’s brows furrow. Something is off about Bucky. The way he’s standing, the slight tremor as he bites his lip. It’s something he’s seen before, something he’s worked with his whole life, but right now it’s something he doesn’t have the time to identify. Doesn’t want to identify.

What the hell Bucky?

“You could have texted me. I gave you a new phone for a reason.” He glances up at the Smithsonian.

“I did. A few times.” 

There’s a strange thread of desperation coloring Bucky’s voice, and Sam bristles in defense. 

But there was no way Bucky could understand just how busy Sam had been. He had no idea what it was like to be bombarded every second of the day with demands and requests. With love and equal amounts of hate. 

How could Bucky expect him to answer his texts, let alone see them, when there’s more than 100 unanswered messages waiting there on his phone? 

By now the crowd’s shouting is pressing in too close, and the other attendees are waiting for Sam at the entrance with impatient looks. 

“Buck...I—I’m sorry man. I gotta go.”

There’s no way in hell that the world’s former most feared and dangerous assassin should look so much like a kicked puppy lying in the curb, but somehow Bucky’s betrayed eyes and faded clothes manage to appear exactly like that. Sam doesn’t know what makes him angrier, the fact that Bucky had the audacity to appear unannounced and get upset at him, or that Sam was somehow unintentionally making the world's most misunderstood man feel like shit. 

“I’ll see you later Buck.”

Sam abruptly turns and walks away as fast as he can without making it look like he is trying to. 

“What is it?” Sharon asks, and Sam is pulled out of the memory, realizing he’s been zoned out for a moment too long. 

He sighs. “It’s nothing.”

She nods, turning out towards the view. “Ooh, the silent treatment. Harsh.”

He whips around towards her, only to see the playful smile tugging at her lips. 

“I’m kidding.” She gives his arm a light slap. “Drinks? Yeah?” 

Her blonde curls bounce as she walks inside. Sam shakes his head. She’s right. He needs to loosen the hell up. She deserved it for how much he’d been putting her off. 

He sighs again, rubbing a hand across his face.

Sharon is pouring a clear but yellow tinted liquid into two tumblers when he walks back in. 

“Hope you’re okay with something heavier, it’s been a loaded week at the office.” She says, a gleam in her eyes.

“Please.” He throws back, ignoring the rationale that reminds him of how he doesn’t want to be hungover tomorrow. 

He plops back down on her sofa, taking a moment to be impressed by the apartment's décor. Clearly Sharon hadn’t spared any expenses in bringing her furniture over from Madripoor. From the gleaming surface of the coffee table to the aged paintings on the walls, the whole place speaks of order and careful planning. And it fits Sharon to a T.

Sharon hands him one of the glasses, sitting across from him with an arm up on the couch frame. She takes a sip of her drink while Sam picks up his phone. 

“So did the President fire you? Too many autographs to sign? Not enough gas in your wings?” Sharon guesses. 

Sam laughs, glancing down at his screen. Emails, news alerts, texts, and more pile across his busy lock screen. 

“They don’t run on gas.” He mutters, scrolling through the endless list. “I don’t sign autographs, and the President just told me how much of an honor it is for me to be Captain America.”

Sharon’s eyes sparkle with humor. “A bit preachy, but okay.”

Sam laughs, looking up from his phone and placing it on the table. “What do you want me to say? I’ve never been happier? Or that ‘ Eagles fly overhead’ when I’m out?”

She shrugs, glancing at his phone as it buzzes on the table. 

“I don’t know,” She admits. “But it would be nice to know the truth.”

Sam lets out a breathy laugh. “It’s a lot is what it is. You know I’ve never been close to… famous? I don’t even know if that’s the right word. It feels wrong putting it in that light, but all I know is there are a lot of people expecting a lot of me and I don’t want to let them down. I can’t.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

Sam’s phone continues to buzz, and he picks it up, frowning at the contact appearing on the screen.

Bucky (old phone)

The call ends before Sam can answer, not that he would have, and displays the notification screen again. Two missed calls from Bucky are the most recent things displayed.

What is he playing at? He’s choosing now to call me for the first time ever? 

Sam puts the phone back down.

Not a good time Bucky.

“How is the old job treating you?” He changes the subject.

“It’s good.” Sharon nods. “It’s good. Five years away and people still manage to make messes only I can clean up, but they’re happy to have me back.”

“Are you happy to be back?”

Sharon opens her mouth to answer as Sam’s phone emits another round of loud buzzing. He picks it up only to see Bucky’s name appearing again on the screen.

He doesn’t hide the eye roll.

“Who is it?” Sharon asks instead of answering his question, a bit of a twinkle in her eye. 

“It’s Bucky.” He answers, not hiding his annoyance.

“Oh?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “I didn’t know he knew how to use a phone.”

The joke isn’t funny, but Sam snorts anyway. 

“Apparently he does. This is the third time he’s called me in the last ten minutes.” He complains. 

The call ends, and Sam reaches to put it down again.

“You should answer it.”

Sam freezes. Sharon’s face holds a smile, but something has shifted in her posture.

“I don’t want to interrupt—“ He starts. 

“It’s alright, just see what he needs.” Sharon shrugs. 

The call ends.

“We’re visiting right now, Bucky can wait.”

His phone buzzes again, but only once.

Phone
Bucky (old phone)
+1 New voicemail

Sharon gives him a hard stare. “Sam, just answer it.”

“Why do you care so much?” He glares back.

Now she rolls her eyes, pushing herself further into the couch. “You’ve been distracted the whole time you’ve been here. Something is clearly bothering you, and your phone has been blowing up the whole time. Sorry for being blunt, but it hasn’t been much of a visit.”

Sam bristles. Why was everyone calling him out lately? He was here, wasn’t he? He was trying.

Sharon’s eyes are drawn around the room, looking anywhere but his face. She doesn’t touch her drink.

Sam frowns, opening the voicemail and pushing his phone against his ear. 

The speaker explodes with the sound of Bucky’s yelling. 

“Sam? Sam? Oh my god, Sam just pick up the phone! Shit!”

A crash sounds as if Bucky had just run through a wall.

“Listen…”

More panting. 

“...They said you aren’t here, but something isn’t right. I think...I’m realizing now it’s probably a trap.”

Wha—

“I don’t know who the trap is for, but on the chance that you get this just stay AWAY—“

Bucky’s voice goes silent, and Sam has to check the message to see if it has ended. There are still three minutes left. 

“Hey,” Sharon stops him from raising the phone back to his ear. He shoots her another glare without thinking. 

“What’s going on?” She asks. 

Her tone is even, but he can see a storm brewing in her eyes. She’s not backing down.

So Sam presses the speakerphone, and Bucky’s panicked huffs fill the room. 

For a moment, that’s all there is. Muffled breathing and an occasional thud. Then…

“...I don’t know what’s going on...I don’t know...they did something to my arm. I’m not—can’t fight my way out.”

Sam knows his eyes must be wider than the sliding door to Sharon’s balcony, but he is stuck in the overly fancy sofa like it’s coated in slime, slowly consuming him until he’s left gasping for air. Another moment passes with bated breath as Bucky waits for...something before speaking. 

“They know supersoldiers. Probably a trap for me, but if you get this and you’re not in trouble...just be careful. Don’t do anything Stu—AHHHHHHH—“

“CRASH”

Another explosion sounds, and the message cuts off.

“What the hell?” Sam barks at no one. “What the hell—“

But he’s already dialing Bucky’s number. The phone is still on speaker so the dial tone echoes from the small device. And so does the immediate cut to voicemail. Bucky doesn’t even have a recorded message set up. Sam calls him again. And again. Every time it’s straight to voicemail. 

Sam isn’t even aware that Sharon is shouting his name, he just keeps spamming the call button. 

But Bucky isn’t answering.

“SAM!” All of a sudden Sharon is in front of his face, and he can’t look anywhere but into her intense gaze that is fully focused on him. 

“Let me help you.” She says firmly.

A dam bursts in his chest. It’s a weird feeling, like drowning but feeling every single drop of water against your skin as it slowly chokes the life out of you.

“I can look up where he was.” Sam responds, turning back to his phone again. 

“You can?” Sharon sounds skeptical.

He doesn’t look back up as his fingers swipe with a vengeance until a green map lights up his screen. Several little blue dots appear, three back in Delacroix, and another couple spread across the country. Sam ignores all these. Instead, he clicks on one specific dot. The dot with a stupid stupid picture of Bucky’s stupid glaring face. He’d taken it one day while Bucky and he had been watching a movie. Bucky hadn’t known, but Sam cracked up every time he saw it, which was a lot because he set the picture as the other man’s contact photo. 

It isn’t making him laugh right now. 

The map zooms in on Virginia until it zeros into the parking lot of Brent’s Oil and Tire somewhere off in the countryside . 

“It says his phone is here.” Sam slides the phone under Sharon’s eyes. 

“You have him on friend finder?” She asks with a raised eyebrow.

Despite the massive throb of worry pressing into his brain, Sam feels the tickle of embarrassment reach through him. 

“I have a lot of people on friend finder.” He lies, narrowing his eyes. 

She shrugs. “Okay. How long ago was he there?”

Sam clicks again. 

“It says he’s still there.”

Without speaking, the two of them instinctively begin packing up and grabbing their things. 

“I’ll meet you at my car in 5?” Sharon calls back to him, heading down her hallway.

“Make it 2.” He growls back. 

Bucky you had better just be messing with me. You better be in that damn parking lot when we get there. 

____________________________________

An hour later, definitely not in that damn parking lot

Bucky Barnes

As Bucky’s head slams into something hard , shooting him unmercifully back into consciousness, he groans and wishes that this was the worst wake up call he’s ever had. 

It’s not.

Not by a long shot. 

He peels his eyes open, gasping at a wave of tightness shooting up from his leg. 

Ow.

It’s completely dark around him. Dark and cramped. He hears his quick and labored breaths as the sounds bounce off enclosed walls. There’s a few inches between him and the ceiling, about as much to the walls too. 

The hell..?

His t-shirt and jeans are too tight and constricting in the stale air, like they are trapping the carbon dioxide inside him. His jacket is also missing which makes him more upset than it should. 

He tries pushing himself up, but quickly finds that his hands have been tied together behind his back. He grunts, the fingers of his right hand brushing against the soft ground. 

No, not ground. 

The entire chamber vibrates around him, and every once in a while there’s a THUNK...

Shit.

He’s tied up in the trunk of a car. 

He knows because...well he just does. Was the Soldier ever transported in the trunk of a car? Probably. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t want to know. Not every second of the Soldier’s life is waiting in line to be reviewed by his brain, and he’s okay with that. 

Regardless, he knows he’s tied up in the trunk of a car. 

Wet tightness shoots through his leg again. He tries to move it. 

A mistake. 

He groans against the sudden onslaught of white hot stabs poking through every limb of his body, centralized at his right thigh. Not a new pain, but one he is very familiar with. 

He’s been shot. 

The car takes an abrupt dip in the road, jostling him and sending a fresh wave of stinging up his right leg. 

It hurts more than it should. 

It’s a dull sensation, but it creeps over him like a steady trickle of ants. Something isn’t right. But...he’s been shot before. Dozens of times. He remembers it from the Soldier. Pain always cuts through the haze that surrounds that time. Every cut, every broken bone, every jolt of electricity stabbing through him and wrecking his mind, he felt it. Not the Soldier. Bucky felt it. 

But this is different. The flesh is torn, and the open cut stings. The slow ooze of blood with every beat of his sluggish heartbeat presses against his mind.

It BURNS.

He squeezes his eyes against it, sucking in a few huge breaths. Is it just him or is the air tight in here? His feet thump against the side of the trunk. God, he barely fits in here. He needs to get out, get away. He can’t believe someone shot him and threw him in here!

...and possibly drugged him?

Yeah.

That would explain the sluggish rate his mind is moving at. Quite opposite to the speed of the car which jostles around him making him wince again. 

He vaguely remembers...a tire shop? And Sam hadn’t been there, but someone else had been. Had they shot him?

But why would Sam be there..? After their last… encounter it seemed like Sam wanted nothing to do with him.

Sorting through his thoughts is like trying to grip a fistful of water. So Bucky gives up, instead he  focuses on his immediate situation. 

His eyes open, and an idea comes to mind. 

Bucky knows about cars. Well, maybe not everything there is to know, but he knows enough to get by. He’s seen engines and motors on dozens of cars through the years, and with a bit of resentment, he admits that he knows that certain parts of cars will break easier than others. 

Mindful of his right leg, Bucky begins shifting himself in the car until his left leg is positioned against one of the corners, one facing the outside. He can make out what sounds like voices though the muffled carpet on the opposite wall, so he knows this is the right one. 

And with a grunt, he kicks at the corner. 

A loud CRASH sounds around him and the carriage is filled with dim light. 

Bucky’s breath huffs as he maneuvers himself around to the new hole in the car. Each jostle of his leg sends a gasp though him, but there’s nothing he can do about it until he gets the hell out of this trunk.

At last, he squints into the hole, noting the tail light dangling by a few wires below it.

The sun is just starting to form into a deep blue sky. All around the rumbling car, dark forest stretches into the otherwise still morning.

Where the hell are we?

The car bumps through a pothole and Bucky has to stifle a cry of pain. Better that his captors not know he’s awake. The noise of the road likely covered up the sound of the tail light, but he doesn’t want to take any more risks until he has to.

Next step is to get his hands free. 

Bucky pulls and pulls at what feels like… duct tape?  

His mind screams why do you know that? WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT? And he angrily pushes the thought away. Just get it off, get out, and you can worry about the Winter Soldier’s unwanted commentary later.

If only he’d been able to talk to Sam in D.C.. Maybe he wouldn’t be in this situation. 

His wrist is raw as he pulls on the tape. Not for the first time, he is glad there are no nerves in his vibranium arm, but he is worried about dislocating the other wrist. That would be less than ideal, but he could manage if it happened. 

Though…something is still slowing his whole system down, and he wonders if it’s affecting his rate of healing.

Shit.

The tape finally starts to give, and Bucky pushes one last strain into it before it rips. Thankfully, he doesn’t pop his wrist, but it feels like the skin around it is probably cherry red. He cradles it for a moment in his good arm, bringing both in front of his body.

Okay, step one done. 

Now step two. Get out of the car. 

He peers outside again to measure the speed of the car. 

It’s moving fast, but nothing that will kill him if he has to jump out. Though, he grimaces, it will hurt like hell on his leg. Maybe enough to not warrant the risk.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He reaches down to feel at the wound, frowning at the fresh blood leaking onto his fingers. 

As he moves his arm, he feels something catching against the hem of his right shirt sleeve. He lifts it to the hole, trying to make out the object in the dim light.

It is smooth and round, like a button. The object is pure black against his pale upper am.

He clumsily grasps the edges of it in the fingers of his metal arm and pulls.

Electricity crackles through his body, it’s red fingers digging into every nerve along his spine and into his brain. He isn’t even aware that he’s screaming until the pain subsides a moment later. 

“Shit!” He pants. What the hell is that thing?

But there’s no time to figure it out anymore. He’s definitely lost the element of surprise. His captors will know he’s awake.

He groans, half in frustration and half in pain, as he shifts to angle his feet against the hood. Wherever they were, regardless of the speed, he’s busting out of here.

The Winter Soldier can’t be caged. 

He kicks the hood once. It dents but doesn’t pop open.

Gritting his teeth, he kicks again. And again. On the fourth kick, there’s a crash and—

The hood flies open, cool air spilling into the car like sobbing tears.

James Buchanan Barnes wastes no time sitting up and gripping the edge of the trunk. 

The car’s brakes squeal, piercing the air as the car begins to swerve and turn unpredictably. Bucky’s knuckles are turning white as his body is thrown around. They can see the hood up. They know he’s escaping.

But the car is also slowing down, and if he waits too long, it will be too late. 

And so, on the next lurch of the car, Bucky flings himself from the trunk. He hits the asphalt with a thud, landing on his shoulder and rolling to his back. Not his smoothest landing, but at least Sam isn’t here to see it.

The car squeals to a stop, and Bucky doesn’t have time to take stock of the cuts and bruises he now undoubtedly has. He pulls to his feet, staggering under the weight suddenly loaded onto his bleeding leg. 

Grunting with effort and pain, he takes off, half running, half limping into the forest. 

Chapter Text

Sam Wilson

Sam knows something is wrong the second he lays eyes on Brent’s Oil and Tire.

The structure itself looms ominously beyond a single ancient streetlight. The off yellow glow makes his stomach queasy, a weird sort of anxiety he can’t name. The air is crisp and humid, just like it was at Sharon’s apartment, but now it’s suffocating him. Trapping him in a jar of nostalgia and terror. As if the night wants to swallow him whole and drag him into the dark carports and garages of the obviously abandoned tire shop.

Sharon stops her car with a squeal of the brakes. The sound cuts through the air of their silent surroundings.

The old shop looms beyond them, a solitary gate to the trees beyond. The road, Old Highway 10, truly has been forgotten and left to rot it away, only a breath of a memory keeping it alive. Though this shop on the side could only be about 40-50 years old, it may as well be ruins testifying of another century.

But the most eerie thing is the complete lack of movement in the area. Not even a ghost would hang out around here.

“Are you coming?” Sharon asks as she pushes open her door.

Sam quits his staring and follows suit. Their boots crunch the gravel under foot.

“I don’t see anything.” He says, nerves crawling.

“There’s not much to see.” She throws back. 

Sam doesn’t like how their voices don’t even echo across the narrow highway into the trees around them. 

“There’s no cars here.” He points out.

“I know.” Sharon’s voice is steady, but something underneath it is shaken. 

Sam stops before the entrance to the shop. He and Sharon exchange a look, neither wanting to be the first one inside. Nothing but pitch blackness waits there. 

There’s a click of a gun.

Sam whirls to find Sharon loading a clip into a sidearm she brandished from somewhere. 

Instead of chastising her for pulling a gun out in the middle of a public highway, Sam is instantly comforted. The sick pit in his stomach reminds him again of how he left his wings back in his hotel room. He could have made the trip here in half the time if he had just brought them. 

“Let’s go.” Sharon declares. Her gun leads the way into the darkness of the shop.

The formless dark around them reminds him of the wings of a stage, full of unseen perils disguised by the dim light outside. He pulls out his phone, ignoring the steady stream of messages therein, and flicks on his flashlight.

Oil stained floors are littered with broken wood and glass. There’s a pipe hanging dangerously low to the ground, so close that they would have walked into it if Sam hadn’t turned on his light. 

They move further into the crumbling structure, every step on eggshells.

“This is recent.” Sam whispers, picking up an empty bullet casing. Unlike the rest of the area, the case is shiny and polished. It’s a 9 millimeter bullet case, the kind used in handguns.

“Not concerning at all.” Sharon barely casts a glance at it, keeping her eyes flicking between doorways. 

There’s more shells littered around the room, and Sam feels his stomach writhe like a caged dragon. He feels sick, like his vomit is about to join the mess on the ground.

Damn it Bucky! What did you get yourself into?

He stands, shining his light around the room again, but there is no sign of his friend. Not his stupid, annoying glare, not his slick black arm, no short brown hair. Nothi—

Wait, what’s that?

Sam frowns, moving towards the small black object. He’d missed it initially, but the small rectangle could be seen now under a broken board. 

He reaches down to grab it, eyes widening as he flips it over in his hand.

Bucky’s phone.

You could have texted me man…

I did. A few times…

Sam doesn’t bother putting a name to the emotion that chokes the life right out of him. 

Bucky’s phone is cracked and the edges are scraped up like someone had dragged it behind a car. Sam remembers buying the black iPhone barely a few months ago. He had purposefully gotten a plain colored phone. He joked it was to suit Bucky’s bland personality. Now he vowed if they found the grumpy ex-assassin safe he would never make fun of him again. 

“Sam.” Sharon’s sharp whisper hits his ears. “What did you find?”

Sam stands from his crouch, holding the phone up.

“Bucky’s phone. It’s damaged.”

Sharon moves over to him, frowning at the phone. 

“Is it dead?” Her eyes scan the broken object like a medical practitioner. 

He furrows his brows, pushing the power button. The phone flicks on, but the charge is weak. The screen lights up, the default background for iPhones displaying on it. Sam notices a warning no signal mark in the top right corner. 

He frowns, pulling out his own phone. Checking the screen, he sees something weird. Full bars of service for him. Strange considering he set up both phones with the same provider…

“Sam?” Sharon asks. 

“It’s alive.” He answers.

Sharon lets out a shaky breath. “Let’s keep going. We’ll look at it later.”

Sam nods, pocketing the phone.

I did. A few times…

The next room is in a similar state as the first, only this one has a vaguely human shaped hole in the side going towards the next room down. Sam can tell it used to be an office, but that’s based purely off the overturned tables and chairs amidst the other mess. Maybe it was a waiting room. 

But Bucky isn't here.

Sam moves to the hole in the wall, noting the fresh split of the wood and brick. 

“This had to have been him.” He brushes a hand over the side, a bit of dust falling in the wake. “Who else could bust through a brick wall?”

“Another super soldier.” Sharon answers obviously. 

He should have seen that coming. It doesn’t make him like the answer any more.

The most apparent path to follow is the one Bucky probably created, and Sharon pushes past him into the hole. Sam follows, shining his light over everything.

It’s not pretty. 

They walk through three busted, gaping holes before the crumbling openings leave them in a wide garage. There’s broken port doors leading back outside here, and one of them has been raised. 

Sam trails over to the open garage door, shining his light over the ground. To his dismay, he finds exactly what he was hoping he wouldn’t. 

A line in the dust and rubble. A line as though a person had recently been dragged through it.

“Shit.” He curses.

“What is it?” Sharon asks.

“I don’t think he is here.”

There’s a sheen to some of the dark stains on the floor and Sam’s heart bottoms out.

No no no no 

He shines his light right on one of the drops to find…

Blood.

Oh god.

It’s blood.

“Oh my god.”

“What?” Sharon sounds equally annoyed as she sounds nervous.

“I think Bucky got shot.” Sam’s voice is somehow firm despite the tremble he feels within. 

“Are you kidding me?”

He doesn’t answer. His mind is miles away, back in Sharon’s apartment, listening to the voicemail. 

Sam? Sam? Oh my god, Sam just pick up the phone! Shit!

Listen…

...They said you aren’t here, but something isn’t right. I think...I’m realizing now it’s probably a trap.

I don’t know who the trap is for, but on the chance that you get this just stay AWAY—

It replays over and over in Sam’s head. The commotion, the cry of pain at the end before it brutally cut off.

It definitely added up. It was like one of those sick math problems kids used to come up with in high school.

If Bucky left a cryptic voicemail from his old phone less than an hour ago, and Sam finds fresh blood where his location says he should be, calculate his chances of being alive and—

Stop it!

“I don’t think anyone is here.” Sharon steps over some debris.

“We still need to check out back.” He swallows. His mouth has never been dryer. “If Bucky is here—“

“We’ll find him Sam.”

He nods, shining his light ahead at the exit. 

The two move back out into the dense, lonely night, moving fast but with caution. Who knew what was out there? Sam hopes Bucky is, but with each minute that hope is fading fast. 

Sam’s light illuminates what the street lamps cannot. The ground is sparsely littered with the same broken glass and debris as inside.

More fighting happened out here? 

The light trails on into faint mist until the forest beyond swallows it whole. Nothing invades the damp, darkness before them. 

There are rocks, boards, broken cement and tires, but no Bucky. 

Sam kicks at a pile of something by his foot. It’s soft and gives away immediately, making him glance down. 

His eyes widen to the size of the old used tires out back. He reaches down to pick up what is unmistakably a black leather jacket belonging to no one else but Bucky Barnes. 

The pit in his stomach gapes as large as the Grand Canyon. 

No no no no. Come on Bucky. You can’t do this to me!

Sam searches the pockets, the sleeves, and shakes it out hoping for some clue as to the owner’s whereabouts. Other than an old gum wrapper and an informational brochure about D.C., there is nothing. Sam tucks the jacket under his arm and resumes his survey of the grounds. 

Less than a minute later, Sharon calls out as she picks up a little black object.

“What the hell?” Her face twists as she holds it to Sam’s light.

If Sam’s stomach was a gaping cut before, it’s now a hurricane crashing around while an earthquake shreds it to shambles. He is going to be sick.

The little black object is mangled like it was thrown into the road and run over three times. The keys are dangling by a thread, and the box-shape it normally holds is so misshapen that a circle would be disappointed.

But Sam recognizes it all the same.

Bucky’s old phone. The flip phone.

“There’s more blood by where I picked it up.” Sharon says.

God Bucky…what did you get yourself into.

“Hang on.” He stops. “Something isn’t adding up.”

“What isn’t?” Sharon holds his gaze. “I think it’s pretty clear what happened here.” 

“No.” Sam pauses, thinking. “Bucky doesn’t use that old phone anymore. I bought him a new one and told him to throw that one into the Hudson. So why did he call me from it instead of his new one?”

Sharon looks at him skeptically. 

Sam pulls the slim phone they found earlier out of his pocket. Bucky’s new phone. The screen is still freaking out, but he pushes on it, clicking on the appropriate prompts. 

He opens the phone app.

Scrolling to recent calls, he almost drops the fragile thing.

Because there’s over 30 calls from Bucky to Sam that didn’t go through. There’s over 30 failed calls.

But I never got any of these…

He checks the time stamp. 

They’re all from just over two hours ago.

How did I miss this?

“No. No. No…”

He opens the text messages. 

Sam is one of the few contacts that pop up in the list of recent texts. Sarah is another. It’s not a long list, but Sam doesn’t waste much time selecting his own name. Not when the only thing he can read in the preview is please be safe. Please answer me…

He isn’t surprised at what he finds. A list of texts. Each one has a red, heart-stopping exclamation mark with it saying not delivered.

And each one tugs at the pit that is deeper than hell in his stomach.

He scrolls through the list, reading the texts backwards.

“Please be safe. Please answer me if you can.”

“I’m heading there now. You better have a good explanation for this.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Call me back if you can.”

“Shit Sam”

“Shit”

“You’re definitely in trouble.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“Can you call me?”

“What the hell???”

“Why are none of these going through?”

“Sam?”

“Should I bring anything? How serious is this?”

“What’s going on?”

“Are you okay?”

Each of the texts is marked as not delivered. As Sam reaches the last one, he almost drops the phone again. He checks the contact, making sure it’s his own number Bucky had been texting. 

It is.

He sucks in a deep breath, trying to make sense of it all.

“Sharon.” He croaks. “Come look at this.”

She looks him over, seeing the distraught on his face. She doesn’t waste a second to look at the screen. 

“What is this?” She hisses. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“I didn’t send that.” He answers. He wants to get defensive, but that won’t help Bucky. Does Sharon really think he would mess with his friend that much? 

“Well then who the hell did?” She meets his eyes.

“I have no idea…”

The message, scrawled in a gray text box, clearly started this whole mess. And the phone says it’s from Sam. 

“Bucky. I’m in it deep. I need you to meet me at this location in an hour. Come alone.”

Paired with the message is a shared location. The old shop they’re standing by.

“I didn’t send that!” Sam is close to shouting. To hell with being subtle. “You saw me! You were with me. I couldn’t have sent that!”

“Sam…” Sharon says slowly. “Whoever sent that message has a whole lot of access to you and Bucky. We need to be careful.”

“Like hell we need to!”

He needs to calm down. He’s losing it. He is so losing it. He needs…he needs—

“I might have an idea of where we can start looking for Bucky.” Sharon pulls him from his thoughts. “But we should get out of here, and I’m going to need to make a call.”

Sam takes another deep breath. 

“Okay. Okay, let’s go.”

____________________________________

Bucky Barnes

It’s not the bullet in Bucky’s leg that eventually stops him, it’s his arm.

Or rather, it’s that thing embedded in his arm. The thing that makes his skin crawl and his nausea writhe. He tries not to look at it. 

But after running through the dense woods for about 20 minutes, Bucky feels his strength sap away like the last embers of a dying fire. And as strange as it sounds, he thinks it’s all getting sucked into the stupid tiny black device. 

He gasps for breath, grabbing onto a nearby branch for support. 

It’s early morning still, and the sun's presence is already warming the sky up to a baby blue. Pure as a winter sky.

It’s not enough light to see by, and that sends another jolt of unexpected panic through him. He should be able to see fine, even in the pre-sunrise area. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about, now he knows for sure. 

He is human. No super soldier serum pumps through him.

But he knew it the second he jumped out of the car. The second his feet touched the ground. The instant the outside air puffed against his skin. 

He doesn’t even know how that’s possible. Does it have something to do with the device in his arm?

Probably.

Does that comfort him at all?

Not even a little. 

He coughs, letting his lungs expand in deep huffs.

He’s not being careful, and he knows it. But he’s hurting, and it’s awful. He wants to throw up and curl up at the base of the tree.

His leg is throbbing, doing no better after running on it. 

Bucky reaches down a trembling hand to feel at the wound. It’s bleeding. Bad. The sticky substance pools under his fingers and drips to the ground. Is that why he’s so light headed? Is it his arm?

A twig snaps in the trees, and he freezes.

His heart is beating erratically. The frantic rhythm reminds him of the way so many of his victims twitched under the crushing grip of his hydra arm. 

No one has ever died at the hand of the Wakandan arm. No one yet.

Maybe the first will be today…

But no one appears beyond his weak and all-too-human eyesight. Not a person or animal. 

He breathes a premature sigh of relief. The ground is wobbling, and he’s wondering if he should sit down for a moment. 

He doesn’t have much chance of out running anyone. Not with his leg, and especially not if he doesn’t have his strength with him.

Human.

Does this mean that he’s not the Winter Soldier at all anymore? Add therapy and subtract super serum, what does it equal? A former POW, scared, injured Bucky Barnes who isn’t sure what’s going on. He’s not sure why he’s been shot or kidnapped. Not sure why he doesn’t have his usual strength or why he’s hurting so bad. Not sure why his closest friend doesn’t have time for him. 

Yeah. Too bad they never taught formulas to handle those kinds of things back in high school. 

He dodges across a small trickling brook and into a thicket of bushes. Then, abruptly, he charges directly left of his former course. 

Throw your assailant off by holding a difficult path.

You would think the Winter Soldier has never run away from anyone before with how he is tripping and stumbling on almost every root. 

The thought is so ridiculous that Bucky actually heaves a choked laugh. 

Tree. Tree. Rock. 

He stumbles again.

He can’t go on much further before he needs to rest.

He needs to rest. He can’t…

Can’t go.

Can’t. 

Won’t go.

Won’t get help.

Sam won’t help him. 

Sam doesn’t have time to save me. 

He stops again, and this time he throws up. 

The device in his arm pulses like it’s alive. Bucky glares at it through spit and sick bile. The damn thing probably has a tracker in it. 

He doesn’t know why that thought didn’t strike him the moment he set off running, but he chalks it up to pain and being shot. 

After another retch and dry heave he flops pathetically over to a tree. He leans on it, thankful for it suddenly taking his full weight. 

The device doesn't make any noise or blink with a signal. Bucky knows a fair amount about tracking tech, but after scanning the device for a few minutes determines that he has no idea if it’s too small for a tracker or not. 

Either way, it’s time to get rid of it.

He braces himself against his only friend, the tree, and grips the smooth edges of the device with his metal fingertips. 

This is gonna hurt, he thinks, remembering his earlier attempt in the trunk. 

He pulls.

For a breath of a moment, there’s nothing.

Then, with a force equal to that which he pulled with, Bucky’s whole body threatens to tear apart.

An electric current crackles through him. It’s jagged fingers paint through his muscles and bones. He thinks he’s screaming. It’s too much.

The human body can withstand up to 2000 volts of electricity. Mine can withstand even more. 

The pulsing from the device increases, and with each throb, Bucky feels more and more wet tears against his cheeks. He’s choking on nothing. Sweating. Dying. 

Oh god, I’m dying…

That’s it. He’s dying. 

He is no longer the Winter Soldier or Bucky Barnes. He is pain, and he wants to die.

The pure current crackles through him, fizzing out second by second. When it all fades, Bucky can’t move. It takes his lungs screaming at him for him to realize he’s not breathing. 

He sucks in a huge breath, coughing at the sudden influx of air. His lungs are battered. His heart is fluttery. Even his eyes have imprints of lighting around the edges.

Not dead. 

No, he’s not dead. Not yet, though he doesn’t know if that’s still preferable to the agony still fading from him.

It…it was worse with Hydra…it was worse. This is nothing…

His own patronizing voice isn’t comforting. He even irritates himself. No wonder Sam has been putting so much distance between them lately. 

The pain from that thought stings anew, but has nothing to do with the bullet hole in his leg or the wretched thing in his arm. 

“…Sam…” He chokes out in a voice that is easily lost in the woods around him. “I’m…sorry.”

Chapter Text

Bucky Barnes

Bucky watched a horror movie with the Wilson’s recently. 

Sarah was opposed at first and Sam was- well. He was busy. But Cass and AJ were relentless. “We need to spend time together”, “Uncle Bucky came all this way to visit”, “It’s almost AJs birthday”, “No, we are old enough”. Bucky was continually shocked at how quick they were to assuage every half doubt in their mother’s mind, and how comical and... cute, their threats were. They definitely didn’t make kids like that when he was born.

Even more shocking was Sarah’s ridiculous threshold of patience with them. She met and went beyond what it took to earn a Nobel Peace Prize at least four times a day. It was for that reason that Bucky didn’t dare comment when she- stiff toned- threw him car keys and sent him off with the boys to find an acceptable scary film. 

After nearly an hour of careful deliberation and multiple visits to parents guides in Google searches, Cass raced up to him clutching a vaguely glimmering DVD case high above his head.

It perfectly checked Bucky's list of parental consent boxes…Not that he knew anything about what that list should have on it. Either way, they took it home. Then, delivering the disk like an Olympic medal, Bucky and the boys watched Sarah skeptically turn it over and over in her hands, eyebrow arched. 

But even she was smiling by the time Bucky brought in snacks, AJ stole blankets from everyone’s beds, and Cass dimmed the lights. 

Bucky was unconvinced that horror could get better after he’d seen Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or the original vampire movie, Dracula, in theaters, but he was still glad to not be spending the night alone. He was loath to admit he’d been having trouble sleeping… again. 

Bucky tried to enjoy the movie. 

He really did want to. 

Really. 

But he couldn’t. 

The plot was uncomplicated. Newlyweds move into a haunted cabin. Ignore warnings from the creepy villagers. Deny it’s obviously haunted state. Involve the police. Run through the woods. Get scared. Etcetera. 

The Bucky from before the war- his first war-  would have been at the edge of his seat. He’d loved that nerve wracking squirm at the bottom of his stomach. Sarah and the boys were a perfect reflection of that Bucky. Totally enveloped. Leaning in at all the right moments. Jerking bowls of popcorn into the air at the jump scenes. 

Bucky was squirming, yes. But not with fear. 

Soon his heart was sinking slow, like a rock in the sand, as the garish flashing light from the screen berated them. 

How many times was I the crazy ax murderer, chasing someone doomed to die at night? On the other hand, how many times was I the one running not expecting to live, but willing to do anything for another minute alive? 

Then it was-  

Which one am I? The victims, naïve, and hopeful, getting trapped in a nightmare? Or am I the poor fool who went insane from being so hurt, and hated, and alone that no one would blame him for being crazy if they only knew why?  

That was the crux of the problem. 

To Bucky, the movie wasn’t scary. It was familiar. 

Sarah, AJ, and Cass never had been chased through the woods by an unnaturally strong folktale. They didn’t have the noise in their head constantly on full dial. Screaming in someone else’s voice to “be vigilant or suffer the consequence” . 

But was he the scared couple or the ax murderer?

It wasn’t until long after the credits rolled and he lay awake wondering, that Bucky knew the answer. 

Not until he gasps, jerking awake, blind, hurt, afraid, and feeling a little too human for comfort that the pendulum swung to its final destination. 

The couple. 

He knows it now. 

Bucky shoots to his feet, grimacing, and takes off again into the wood around him. He emerges from the bush as gracefully as a fish struggling on the dock. He doesn’t realize he is tilting, careening sideways until he is leaning heavily on a shadowy bark that must have been a tree.

His brain is staging a coup d’etat.

Every third second a heavily accented voice recites age old instructions, or asks close ended questions in monotone. 

Through the vast echo behind it a whisper, cracked and isolated, reciteds a name and flimsy string of numbers. His numbers he realizes. 

Sergeant Barnes. Three two five five seven zero three eight.

And the other part of him watches from a vacant distance somewhere overhead. Literally watching the exhausted slump, and heaving shoulders. Noting how very much the person standing there looks like half of a very unfortunate crew of victims in the night. 

Is this how they felt? 

Naive. 

Bucky grits his teeth and closes his eyes. Immediately a dead voice tells him to open them back up.

Stupid. 

He claws at the black disk embedded in his flesh arm. It has much the same effect that it had back in the clearing where he had passed out for a few minutes.

He bites his lip to stifle the scream. 

Dead. 

“No!”

Bucky’s eyes shoot open.

“No,” he repeats, eyes shooting around like sporadic stars, but seeing nothing in the darkness. 

Threat level high. Assailants untracked. No arms. Mission unclear. Noting unauthorized brain fog and high levels of- 

Growling like a feral beast, Bucky pushes himself up, and runs, feeling like a steaming broken mess of an engine, into the dim. 

Once again, he curses the mystery drugs he was on. He can’t see trees, bushes, or steep sudden inclines until he is right on top of them. 

Sergeant Barnes. Three two five five seven zero three eight.

In his sight, nothing will stay still. Trunks and branches curl like clawed fingers, and what are probably actually ferns coalesced and dispersed like menacing black ghosts. 

Is this how that couple felt? Is this how Yori’s son felt?

The rasp of the second voice in his head stops from reciting numbers. Then it starts saying the word “ monster, monster, monster” over and over again, like an insane person’s mantra.

His leg burns. Bucky has been shot, stabbed, and obtained, in some way, every injury under the sun. But never has it felt so…

Bucky huffs, glancing down. In the still early morning he can’t even see his own leg well. He can feel another track of blood etch it’s way through the torn fabric. Every step twists it around his leg's gaping hole. 

So hot. So irritated. So swollen. So sensitive. So-

“Human,” Bucky mutters. He stumbles. Again. Like he is drunk. One moment falling. The next he is standing upright with no recollection of balancing himself. 

Sergeant Barnes. Monster. Three two five, MONSTER, five seven zero three eight.

Bucky massages his temple, and slows. Time is passing like a movie with lagging audio. His body seems way ahead of his brain. 

The zombified voice in his head tells him to look behind him for signs of a tail. 

I feel human. That’s the problem. 

Find the tail. 

It’s too dark. He sees nothing over his shoulder. Just trees, roots, leaves... 

Too human.

Looking up and around is giving Bucky serious vertigo. Black spots dance in his vision, backed by spikes of white lumin. Somehow his feet stay under him. 

Assailants untracked. All systems are declining. Awaiting instruction. 

A branch snaps like firecrackers under his foot. He hears nothing but his own clumsy attempt at escape. 

Monster, Sergeant monster, monster, three...

I’m too human. 

Turning his eyes forward, Bucky squints and glimpses a distant street light paint the gaps between dark trees with orange. 

Humans!

“Wait, what,” Bucky tries focusing his drugged vision, a glimmer of hope sparking somewhere in the twisting waves of his gut. He sways forward through undergrowth, lost like a ship in a hurricane.

There it is again! 

Flickering through the trees like police lights down the alleys in a city. 

A street lamp. Dim and grungy, but more satisfying than a blazing fire in the winter. 

Light. 

“That means…”

Road.

Light means electricity. Light means…

People. Light means people. 

Bucky heedlessly changes his direction and padded towards it, wondering distantly which voice had told him to do so. 

He turns the corner and sees…

A gas station? 

Huh…

Old, broken down, but indeed, before Bucky is a gas station. Two roofed gas pumps marred by oily grime, black fuzz, and a thick layer of dust sits under flickering lights. A looming billboard reads “ Last stop gas station” in peeling wallpaper, whilst behind it all, a squat store hunkers down casting low beams into the parking lot. 

Bucky stops in the middle of the road when he sees it. Looks backwards. Then back at the gas station. 

Essential objective. Gain contact with allies.

Sam… 

Bucky massages the side of his head where he’d just felt a sharp twinge behind his ear. 

Essential objective. Gain contact with allies. 

Still, he stands in the street. The sun’s slow rise sends warm tendrils enveloping him like a cloak. 

Essential objective. Gain-

“Why am I hearing you again anyways,” Bucky mutters, stepping forward, “It doesn’t make sense.” 

You’re gone, he thinks, I- the Wakandans and I. We killed that voice. 

Monster, monster, monst-…Three two five five …seven zero three eight.

Bucky sighs, resisting the urge to tell his brain to “shut up”. 

“Someone better be home,” he says instead, focusing back on his objective.  

He twists his way over a gravel pit on the road’s shoulder. Up until now he’s been doing his best to ignore the pain in his leg, but it is starting to blaze, unbearable. 

Bucky steps into the parking lot noticing for the first time his shoe’s loud squelching noise. 

Excellent. 

There are two cars in front of the store. Just a truck that looks older than Bucky himself and a newer hybrid sedan. Then he is standing at the water stained double doors to the store. 

When did I get here? 

Bucky swears he can feel himself fizzling out like an overused steamboat. The door handle shrinks and tilts even as he watches his hand reach up and give it a slight pull. 

“Don’t,” between his ears is stuffed with cotton. Bucky doesn’t even know who is talking out loud and who is trapped inside his head anymore, “don’t feel right-‘

Wait. Scope out the building before- 

The command in that tone doesn’t even register coherently in the foggy space behind his eyes before Bucky is pulling open the door and stumbling inside. 

WAIT. Scope out the-

“What,” the fluorescent lights inside are like daggers to his sensitive eyes. Bucky ducks his head low, blinking involuntary tears, and mutters even lower, “What did you say? Scope the what-… wait. Wait for who?”

“Hola,” someone says. Quiet, tentative. 

Bucky keeps walking… somewhere… damn, his leg hurts. It burns. Who-

“Hola? Puede oírme señor?”

“Huh?” Bucky looks up, eyes slitted against that god awful blaring light. 

“Está usted bien?”

Bucky blinks. 

Someone is talking to him. 

There is a woman staring at him. Standing only two feet away though Bucky hadn’t even noticed… 

No. A voice says. Not her. 

Behind her. A man. Old looking…

Elderly. Hispanic. Wearing a uniform. Name tag. Using that register. It’s the store clerk.

“Señor?”

The man’s mouth moves under a white mustache. 

“Está usted bien?”

Are you ok? 

“Uh,” Bucky looks down. His shoe is leaving smudged red footprints on the sickening white tiles. The skin around the metal disk in his flesh arm practically pulses, and the veins in his arm look swollen and bruised. Sweat and stray tears cascade from him like he was a water fountain in a town square. Bucky knows he is visibly unbalanced and swaying like a weeping willow’s branches. 

What an absolute sight he is. 

“No,” Bucky decides, “not ok.”

The woman standing in front of him seems to think so as well. 

She is dressed in what Bucky’s brain now registers as a nurse or doctor's garb. 

Tall. Muscular. Polynesian. Possibly Maori ancestry. 

Her big dark eyes might have been kind of not for the horror in them. She is totally frozen. Shocked. Looking at him like he was a-

Monster, monster, MONSTER. 

Bucky shakes himself looking back at the store clerk. 

The clerk looks at him. 

The nurse does too.

A beat. Bucky might have cared about his tactlessness another time. Not today. 

“Can I use your phone,” Bucky points at the corded phone box on the counter by the store clerk's hands. 

The man says nothing. 

The woman is now glaring intensely at his face. 

The voices in his head have nothing to offer.

The pain in his leg does. 

“Uhh,” What language had the man been speaking again? Spanish?

“Puedo usar tu teléfono?” He tries again.

The store clerk could have been dried into an oil painting for all he reacts, but he makes no action to stop Bucky when he stepped around the nurse, and traipsed closer.

The nurse for her part watches under dark brows as he slips his way on bloody boot to the cash register desk. 

Note. The nurse could be dangerous-

“Shut up,” he whispers.

By the time Bucky gets to the table his leg is visibly shaking under him. Glancing down, he notices the hole is oozing red tears in sluggish rivers. Bucky doesn’t hesitate to hold the wound closed though the pressure ends up just sending the blood through the gaps in his fingers.  

“Gracias.”,” Bucky mumbles. He reaches across the store clerk’s table and drags the phone box closer to him knocking pencils and receipts to the floor. 

Essential objective. Gain contact with allies. 

Bucky memorized Sam’s phone number despite his friend’s incredulity. At least one of Bucky’s odd quirks comes in handy. 

He taps out the numbers hastily and hits call without another thought. 

Beeep. 

Bucky waits on the line. A fresh trickle of blood slipped over his dirt encrusted knuckles. Slamming into the door and collapsing across the front desk evidently did nothing for the hole in his leg. Bucky adjusts his grip and watches flakes of red drift to the ground.

Beeep. 

He can feel the store clerk’s eyes on him. Bucky closes his eyes to avoid contact. 

Sam! Now would be a great time to remember that we’re still friends! 

Bucky starts counting against the burning sensation in his leg. He hisses the numbers under his breath. 

Beeep. 

The longer he waits the sicker he becomes in a way that has nothing to do with his general lethargic state. 

Sam…

That stinging memory reappears like a bad dream. Bucky sidling past a thousand flashing lights, eyes fixed on that smear of red, white, and blue- finally making contact. Only to get reprimanded, then rebuffed by his only friend like they don’t even know each other. 

Monster. The shaking faded voice in his head speaks. 

Bucky grits his teeth. 

God, if he doesn’t answer…

Beeep. 

The wound, so recently inflicted, would get ripped open in a way that couldn’t be anything but fatal. The final nail in a coffin.

He doesn’t have time for you. 

Bucky shivers violently. 

Hostile’s location: unknown. Last known speed: faster than me. Move out ASAP. 

Bee- 

“Hello?” 

Just like that, the deep seated twisting and gagging in his stomach melts away. Even the voices in his head are leashed for a moment. 

Sam’s voice doesn’t possess any measure of tenderness or soothing. It is just his normal voice. 

Bucky sees it differently. A lifeline. A choir of angels. A spark of hope in a horror movie. For just a second he holds his breath tightly. Not really believing. 

“Who is this?”

Bucky realizes with a start he hasn’t said anything back. 

“Sam? Sam!”

“Oh my god! BUCKY?!”

Sam’s voice is so loud it shorts out the static noise on Bucky’s phone. 

“Sam, you need to hurry. I’m in a gas sta-“

“Where are you,” Sam demands, “Where are you calling from? I’m coming right now! Sharon-”

Sam pulls the phone from his ear and yells something else. Bucky raises an eyebrow. 

Did he not hear me?

“Buck,” Sam is yelling through the speaker again, “Where are you, what-”

“I just told you. I’m in a gas station in the middle of nowhere-”

“We got you! Don’t worry man, we’re tracking you now. God, man. It’s good to hear your voice. You have no idea. Listen Bucky, I’m sorr-”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The cashier yells and dives behind the counter. 

“Sam! I-“

But there is no answer. 

Three bullets burrow deep into the phone’s stand, and that comforting voice immediately vanishes, cutting off like it got sucked into a black hole. 

Bucky stands in shock, phone hanging loose in his hand, wondering where all the air in his lungs had gone. 

No, no, no! That was way too fast. What- How…

He gasps, twisting, expecting to see–

Bullets shatter thousands of different glass panels, jars, and windows. Another barrage of gunshots takes out half the lights inside

Bucky now stands in the dark and relative quiet. 

Threat assessment: high danger. 

His breath catches in his mouth. The phone shakes in his hand. His knee buckles and he leans on the cashier's counter. 

“How…”

Other than one or two dimly flickering lights, dangling from their cans on the ceiling, and small pieces of glass dripping to the ground like a diamond waterfall, nothing moves. 

Likelihood of casualties and severe collateral.

Nothing moves except those shadowy silhouetted figures moving up to the door. They are backlit by the remaining lights from the gas filling stations, so Bucky can’t make out any discernible features. 

No, wait. Scratch that. Severe collateral achieved already, so why don’t you MOVE DAMN IT! What are you doing just standing here?!

At the voice's derision, Bucky pushes off the table, diving behind a shelf of randomly assorted items to the left. Not a second later he hears the crunch of broken glass under someone’s heavy boots.

The store has no emergency lights. Streetlight filters in through the gaps in shelves. Bucky can taste the stench of dirt and seldom used cleaning products from his position on the floor. The blood coating his fingertips is tacky against the tile. With every irregular breath metal shelves dug into his back. The only other sound is-

A whimpering noise. From behind the store clerk’s desk. 

“Hey,” Bucky whispers, harsh, “Get out of here. Sal de aquí!”

“Quién está ahí?” Comes the frantic reply. 

“It doesn't matter who they are! Just get out or hide.”

A scuffling sort of shuffle quietly marks the store clerk’s departure. Bucky huffs a sigh of relief. 

One less casualty. 

But wait–what about–

A woman screams from the middle of the store. 

Bucky curses under his breath, chancing a glance above the shelfs, knowing what he will see before he sees it. 

That doesn’t stop his stomach from plummeting. 

One of the dark silhouettes from outside pulls the other occupant of the gas station up to her feet. The woman screams, fighting against his grip the entire time. 

Likelihood of casualties–

“Hey!” Bucky calls, pushing himself out into the aisle, exposed, vulnerable. “Leave her alone!”

The captor immediately presses a dark shape under the woman’s chin. Bucky inches out more. 

“Leave her be.” He repeats. He slowly raises his arms up. 

Looking out the window he sees a beat up car parked next to the pick up truck. The car is missing a tail light and has seen better days. If he had two dollars he would bet it is the same car he escaped from earlier. Too bad he doesn’t have two dollars. 

“I’m who you’re here for.” He calls out again as the woman squirms in her captor’s grip. He tiptoes closer.

“Hey,” the captor presses his gun closer to the nurse's head, “ Both of you quit moving, or I’ll straight up kill one of you!”

Bucky freezes immediately. 

“What do you want?” He calls. His voice is hoarse, trembling. Tired. He wants this entire charade to be over. He doesn’t want to be scared, hurt, or human. 

Another figure enters the store behind the first captor and the woman. It’s another man, dressed in dark clothing with his face obscured. 

He points a handgun at Bucky. 

“Outside now.”

Bucky swallows thick bile. His throat is dry. He is tempted to pick up one of the fallen water bottles from the ground as he shuffles forward, limping. 

The woman whimpers in the first man’s grip. 

“What do you want with us?” She cries, and Bucky is surprised to hear a thick southern drawl in her voice. 

“Shut up.” Her captor growls, yanking her forward after Bucky. 

The four of them exit the gas station. By now, the sun is starting to peak out over distant treetops and hills.

Bucky’s tired mind is screaming at him.

You can still make it out of this. If you turn so that-

No! 

You can’t let them hurt her, she is innocent and she’ll die if you do anything–

Shut up!

The men tie the woman’s hands behind her back and usher her into the backseat of their car. Bucky gets a better look at it now. An old Honda Accord. He’s seen thousands of these, they are incredibly common. 

One of the men turns on Bucky. He backs up defensively, but the man points his gun at the car.

“If you struggle, we kill her. End of story.”

Bucky clenches his jaw. 

I feel human, but I’m not. I’m still a monster. Ax murderer. That’s the problem. 

The thought is still fresh on his mind when a blow to the head spins him out sideways and unconsciousness consumes him like a ravenous beast. 

Chapter Text

Sam Wilson

The glass window of Sharon’s car is cool against Sam’s forehead. He wants the soothing sensation to seep into his brain, to let the numbness take over and let him drift off into nothing.

It’s been…actually he doesn’t know how much time has passed since they found Bucky’s phone or listened to the voicemail. All Sam knows is that the sun is now beginning to rise, the horizon a friendly shade of very light blue.

Sharon is still outside. She’s been talking on the phone for the last 20 minutes. Said her sources might have an idea of where Bucky is. Sam opted to stay in the car. Better to not prowl around the poor woman while she’s trying to help him.

Trying to help Bucky.

Sam’s fingers close around the sleek casing of his friend’s phone, still resting in his lap.

“You could have texted me. I gave you a new phone for a reason.” 

“I did. A few times.”

That was the last conversation they’d had. The last conversation they might ever have. 

For a brief, horrible moment, Sam pictures Bucky in some kind of Hydra torture chamber, sentenced to another lifetime of freezing and thawing like a damn Christmas tree. He sees him fighting, clawing away at the bindings. He screams Sam’s name. Steve’s name.

But it’s too late.

All because Sam didn’t have the time to properly pay attention.

He closes his eyes again.

It’s too much. Too horrible. It can’t be real. Bucky is probably safe somewhere and this is all a huge misunderstanding. He’s probably going to call Sam any second from someone else’s phone and explain with that stupid sheepish grin of his that he dropped his phone and cut his hand or something and—

Sam’s phone starts vibrating in his pocket.

He scrambles, heart skipping a beat, fingers fat and clumsy, almost ripping his seat belt as he tears the phone out of his pocket to find…

Sarah Wilson

His thoughts catch up with the rest of his emotions, mocking himself for letting his hopes get ahead of him. Why would it have been Bucky? 

The phone continues to vibrate, and he debates answering it for a solid 10 seconds. 

Finally, he slides the dot across the screen and lifts it to his ear.

“What is it?” He snaps as he answers it.

“Excuse me?”

“Look,” Sam takes an evening breath. “I’m sorry Sarah, but some shit has gone down and I don’t have time right now—“

“What happened?”

Oops. He can’t tell her. She’ll kill him. 

He shouldn’t have said anything. Damnit!

“I really have to go—“

“Damn it, Sam, what happened?”

“I’m handling it.” His voice is stiff. He knows she won’t back down.

“Handling. What?” She’s pissed. “ You don’t get that worried tone in your voice unless it’s something serious, and if it’s something serious that you don’t want to tell me then you absolutely need to tell me what it is.”

He swallows. How is he supposed to tell her? He’s an utter failure? That one of his best friends got kidnapped and shot under his watch? 

“It’s really not important—“

“Like hell it is!” She hisses. “If it’s not important then why are you hiding it? And while you’re at it, explain why you’ve been a jackass lately.”

“I—“

He can’t. He can’t tell her. There’s no way in hell. She doesn’t need to carry it too. That gnawing hole in the pit of his stomach. 

Isn’t one person experiencing Bucky Traumatic Stress Disorder enough?

“Sam?” Sarah’s voice is much calmer now. “I’m not your enemy. I’m on your side, even if you drive me up the wall sometimes, I’m not going to fight you—“

“It’s Bucky. He’s been shot and kidnapped. We found blood…and…and god Sarah, it doesn’t look good. Sharon is chasing down a lead right now, but he could be anywhere.”

Sam doesn’t mean for it to all come out at once, but she invited him into a safe space. It’s only there he can fully admit how afraid he is. 

No, not afraid. Terrified. 

It’s not like Bucky’s never been in danger before, but something about this feels wrong. It’s too close to home. The phone being hacked? Someone using Sam as bait? It’s too much.

“Shit. Okay. Shit…” Sarah says after he’s done.

He can’t help the laugh that escapes him. 

“Yeah.” He chokes out. He’s not crying, but the tears are there. Like a distant storm cloud.

“How long has he been missing for?” 

“A few hours.” He answers promptly. It’s easy to answer questions. To state the facts. The facts are just statements. Truths. The facts didn’t take Bucky.

“And Sharon is helping you look?”

“Yeah.” He mumbles. Sharon was doing everything currently.

“How did you know he was missing? I’m just asking for the circumstances, I’m not doubting you.” It’s a good distinction she makes, though unnecessary. Sarah wouldn’t mistrust Sam like that. 

“He called me, on his old flip phone. You know that one I tried to get him to get rid of?” He asks. 

“Mmhmm.” Sarah confirms.

“And I didn’t think anything of it.” Sam blabs on, grateful for a distraction if nothing else. “But then I got this voicemail and Sarah, it was bad. There was all this noise and he was screaming.”

Sam shudders involuntarily at the memory. When they found Bucky, he would be promptly deleting that voicemail.

“After that I tracked his iPhone.” He continues. “But by the time we got there it was too late. We found both phones. It looked like someone had hacked the new one.” 

There is silence on the line for a long minute. Sarah finally speaks up, worry tainting her voice.

“ Sam ,” She cautions. “ This all is sounding weird.”

“I know.” He agrees. 

“Trust your friends, but you tell me the second something seems off. Maybe we can crack this together.”

He nods, considering the proposition. 

“ Sam?” 

“Yeah?”

“If they wanted Bucky dead,” Sarah’s voice is slow but sure . “They would have killed him already and left the body.”

Sam swallows, an unwanted image of Bucky’s corpse lying face down outside of the tire shop. The skin is blue and bloated, his face, tormented. Just like Riley’s had been.

“Yeah, I agree.” He cuts off the train of thought, not sure if he really agrees with Sarah or if he just needs something to distract him. 

“ You’ll find him Sam, I’m sure—“

Sam doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence because his phone begins to vibrate anew. He pulls it away from his face, scanning the screen with suspicious eyes.

Call from Unknown Number

“Hey Sarah,” He interrupts. “I am sorry. Listen, I’ve got another call coming in I’m going to take. I’ll let you know if we find him.”

“Let me know when you find him, not if.”

Sam smiles. 

“When we find him. Bye Sarah.”

She bids him farewell, and Sam lowers the phone to look at the screen again. He hits the button to end his last call and answer the new one. 

He sighs as he lifts it to his ear. If it’s another spam call he might break something. 

“Hello?” He announces in a harsher tone than he means to. 

The line is silent. 

Wait no, there’s a harsh and heavy puff of static against the speaker. Sam has the horrible thought of a monster, growling into the unknown phone. A mystery figure. Or maybe just a wrong number?

“Who is this?” He tries to hide the tremble in his voice and his question also comes out far harsher than he intends.

“ Sam? Sam!”

Oh my god. 

There’s no mistaking Bucky’s gravelly voice.

“Oh my god! BUCKY?!” Sam’s shout is so loud he is pretty sure Sharon hears it outside. 

But it’s Bucky. And he’s alive and talking to him. 

“Sam, you need to hurry. I’m in a gas sta—“

“Where are you,” Sam interrupts. “Where are you calling from? I’m coming right now! Sharon—“

He whips his head back to see the blonde still actively chatting on her call. He fumbles with the car door handle in his haste to push it open. 

“SHARON!” 

Her questioning look vanishes at the sight of him clutching his phone like it’s his only lifeline. She sees the active call and marches over.

“It’s Bucky.”

Her eyes widen. 

“Buck,” Sam yells back into the speaker again, “Where are you, what—“

“I just told you I’m in a gas station in the middle of no—“

BANG BANG BANG

The shots ring through the phone stopping Sam’s heart. 

“BUCKY? BUCKY?”

He’s aware that he looks like a madman, screaming into a phone while all hell breaks loose on the other end.

“Sam! Where is he?” Sharon throws her hands upwards. “What did he say?”

“Bucky!”

“Sam! I—“

Bucky’s strangled cry is once again cut off by a sting of gunshots. 

“Bucky, please talk to me!” He pleads into the receiver. He meets Sharon’s eyes. “Can you trace the call?”

She bites her lip. “I can try.”

Whipping her phone in front of her, Sharon’s fingers begin flying across the screen. Satisfied, Sam returns his attention to the phone where the only sounds are crashing, glass shattering, footsteps, and a distant something that sounds far too much like a scream. 

“Bucky, are you there? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”

How cruel to have his friend just beyond help. Sam is a kitten and Bucky is the end of a piece of yarn that someone keeps yanking out of sight. 

Only he’s not a kitten, he’s Captain America and he shouldn’t feel this helpless. 

“Please man,” He tries again. “You have to give me something—“

Abruptly, the line goes dead. 

“No, no, no, no!” He curses. “Sharon! Did you get it?” 

Her brow is furrowed in deep concentration. “I think so.”

Sam is on his feet before he realizes it. “Where?” He barks.

Sharon doesn’t answer as she peers down at her phone. Sam sees the screen. There’s some app open, a map from the look of it. It’s loading…loading…and DONE!

She meets his gaze, steeling her eyes on his. 

“It’s a gas station about two miles from here. Let’s go.”

____________________________________

Sam Wilson

“I’m sorry sir, you need to stay back.”

Sam stares blankly at the officer. 

You gotta be shitting me…

Why isn’t he letting them through? Doesn’t he recognize him?

The sheer number of cop cars and sirens surrounding the gas station is comparable to the aftermath of a natural disaster. It’s appropriate, he thinks. Better this than a single, overworked officer. 

What is he thinking? There’s no plus side to this! 

“I need to get back there.” Sam responds, pointing at the gas station that has clearly seen better days.

The officer shifts, adjusting his belt. He doesn’t want to be doing this. It’s a terrible situation, and Sam knows because he’s been there.

“Sir,” The officer starts, “I can tell you’re upset, but this is a tricky situation. Alright? There’s been multiple rounds fired and potential injuries. We need to scope out the scene before—“

“You need to let me through.” Sam presses against the yellow caution tape to make his point. “MY FRIEND WAS IN THERE.”

“Sir I understand that—“

“Oh my god,” Sharon rolls her eyes, marching up beside them. “Do you really not recognize Captain America?” 

The cops eyes widen. He scans Sam up and down, realization dawning on his face. He starts stuttering an apology. 

“No. Stop.” Sharon holds up a finger. “Just let us through. Please.”

The officer nods mutely, moving the tape. The second it’s gone Sam makes a beeline for the small convenience shop.

In the still early morning, the smell of fear is far too strong. Sam sidesteps the broken front door, Sharon in stride, to behold the mess inside. 

Sam isn’t big on zombie movies or games, but the scene inside tugs his memory back to the few that he’s watched. Spilled packages of Doritos scatter across the floor like confetti. Broken glass from the windows cover every shelf of the first small aisle. 

There’s a broken phone on the ground and bullet holes in the wall next to the soda fountain. The bright Coke logo is undisturbed, the glow highlighting the room in an eerie red.

A swarm of first responders are hovering over a man at the counter who is anxiously waving his hands around and explaining something.

So that’s where they go too.

The man, a middle aged Hispanic, is speaking rapidly in Spanish. His hands tremble as he does, occasionally gripping the fabric of his uniform. Three officers are gathered around him looking confused and a bit helpless. One is trying to write open google translate on his phone, but communication isn’t flowing between them. 

Sam shares a glance with Sharon. 

“Do you speak Spanish?” He asks.

Sharon nods, opening her mouth to translate.

“He’s talking about a man…appeared out of nowhere. He said he was being chased—could be Bucky—and he needed a phone.”

Sam listens with bated breath. 

“He let him use his phone.” Sharon continues. “And he thinks he got through to contact someone.”

Sam feels a stab in his gut. “Yeah, that sounds right. Let’s ask what that guy looked like.”

Sam and Sharon take a few steps closer and all eyes turn to them. 

“Who the hell are you?” One of the officers asks. “This is a crime scene, who let you in here?”

Sam fixes his eyes right onto the man ignoring the officer. He sees now the small trickle of blood on the clerk’s forehead, the tiny cuts on his fingers. There’s glass in his hair, but he seems fine otherwise. His eyes are alive though jittery. 

“Sharon.” He urges, still ignoring the officers.  

Sharon locks eyes with the man and speaks.

“El hombre del que hablaste. ¿Cómo es?”

The man looks at her, relief flooding his face at a fellow Spanish speaker. He animatedly answers the question. 

“He was wearing a dark red t-shirt? I think.” Sharon translates. “Uh, he had brown hair…and he had on some kind of weird glove thing. Like his whole arm was covered by it. It was really metallic looking.”

Sharon shoots him a look. 

“That’s Bucky.” Sam agrees, cursing internally. The shop around them looks bad, he can only guess what state Bucky is in. 

“I’m going to ask again,” One of the officers steps up. “Who let you in here?”

“Oh for the love of—“ Sharon exclaims, meeting the officer’s eyes. “Hi. I’m Agent Sharon Carter. Sorry I left my badge back in DC. You might recognize my friend Sam Wilson, or maybe you aren’t a Captain America fan. Not my damn problem. What is my problem is that his best friend was kidnapped and shot but apparently made a surprise appearance here just before the place also got shot up. Now, are we going to have any issues or are you going to help us do our job?”

The officers gape at Sharon. Each of them looks the two of them over, then have similar reactions to the officer outside. 

A gas station surrounded by cops shouldn’t be as quiet as it is, but as the sirens outside reflect on the shelves and bright packaging no one dares speak up in the silence that follows.

Sharon signs, pushing past the officer in front of them. She pulls out her phone, scrolls for a moment, then holds in front of the worker. 

“¿Es este el hombre que viste?”

The worker’s eyes light with recognition. 

“Sí.” He nods. “Pero estaba cubierto de sangre. Los hombres que dispararon en el lugar se lo llevaron.”

Sharon frowns. 

“They took him.” She pauses. “And he was covered in blood apparently.”

Covered in blood..? God, Bucky!

Sam buries his firsts in his pockets to disguise his frustration. 

“And you said he was taken?” Sharon probes.

“Sí…” The man winced. “Supongo que las balas empezaron a atravesar las paredes. Rompió el cristal. Nunca escuché disparos a mi lado, pero parece como si alguien estuviera encendiendo fuegos artificiales afuera.”

Sharon gave a small, sympathetic smile.

“Pero eran sólo estos tipos vestidos de negro. Se acercaron a la tienda aquí. Había al menos dos o tres, eso es lo que vi.”

The man shifts, glancing around at the faces hovering over him. 

“Me puse detrás del mostrador, pero escuché a tu amigo intentar pelear. Había otra señora aquí. Cuando esos tipos lograron entrar… la usaron como rehén y luego se los llevaron a ambos.”

He swallows, looking down. 

“Yo… yo no hice nada. Estaba demasiado asustado. No creo que supieran que estaba aquí.”

Sharon makes a face, somewhere between sympathy and frustration. It was as if she’s forgotten which emotion is appropriate in the circumstances.

“He said there were several assailants. Two or three, but he got scared and hid behind the counter after they started shooting.” She summarizes for Sam. “I don’t think we’ll get much more from him.”

"¿Este edificio tiene una cámara en el exterior?" She asks in a small tone. It’s as if she’s now trying to appear non-threatening.

The man thinks for a moment. “Sí. Sí lo hace. Podemos acceder a él a través de la trastienda.”

The man hops up, walking towards a small hallway towards the restrooms. 

“There’s a camera in the back room.” Shannon announces. “Let’s go.”

The whole group allows the man passage as he moves to the said work office. No one questions Sam and Sharon leading right behind him. 

The poor clerk’s hands shake as he tries to line the key up with the lock to the back room. The blade misses several times before it slides in and turns with a click. Then he, Sharon, Sam, and the three officers all crowd into a small office with an ancient desktop computer sitting on the side. There are old receipts, empty bottles of Mountain Dew, and various other trinkets scattered around the office. There’s barely enough room for all of them to stand while the clerk sits at the chair and boots up the computer.

Sam waits, shifting his weight from side to side, watching as the man tries and fails to log onto the server three times. He clenches and curls his fingers around Bucky’s phone which hasn’t left his pocket since he found it on the ground. It offers no comfort, though Sam wonders if feeling the grooves and glossy frame, the same edges that his friend has touched dozens of times, will bring him any closer to him. 

Finally, after what feels like fifteen or more minutes, the computer screen lights up. The clerk opens a software and the screen is suddenly filled with images of the outside. Police sirens light the air along with the jagged movement of officers milling about outside. 

The clerk checks the time on his phone, then makes a few clicks on the screen until the live footage rewinds. The sky darkens, and the light now comes only from the occasional passing headlight. 

The six of them watch, barely making a sound as the footage plays past. Minutes tick by. Sam watches, counting the cars that cycle through the frame like an old child’s toy. He is about to ask if they can speed things up when a dark shape staggers into the frame. 

Oh my god…

Sam thinks he will be sick, watching as what can only be Bucky staggers closer from the dark beyond. As he draws towards the building, Sam can’t see his face with the blurry low quality film, but he can see the hunched form, the limping, and the reddish brown color covering him. 

Bucky gets closer and closer until he disappears under the frame, having entered the building. A few minutes pass then a car pulls into the parking lot, parking directly in front of the camera. 

The morning light is at a perfect brightness where it’s too bright for the lights to be on outside the shop but not bright enough for Sam to see more than fuzz on the license plate. What he can see is that it’s obviously a Honda. He even thinks it’s the same make and model as the one he used to drive. Silver, 2002 Accord. The same car that every other damn person owns.

Two people, all clad in black, jump out. Taking out guns and shooting into the gas station may as well be as normal as removing a seat belt with how quickly and naturally they ease into it. The resolution is bad enough that each bullet is merely a flash of light. A firefly flickering in and out in the pale picture. 

After what feels like an hour, they stop. One nods to the other, directing it towards the store. That one moves forward, the other staying behind. 

Minutes pass.

The store clerk taps his finger against the mouse. Sharon looks pissed. The officers shuffle behind him. Sam grinds his teeth. The light from the screen barely illuminates the faces crowded around it.

The man waiting outside now walks into the building. The video has no sound, but Sam flinches like someone sounds an airhorn in his ear when the two men return a few moments later, guns trained at the heads of two people: a woman Sam doesn’t recognize and Bucky. 

The men usher the woman into the backseat, her hands tied behind her. Then they turn on Bucky. His friend backs up defensively, but the men point the gun at the car.

The point is clear. If Bucky runs, the woman will be shot. 

Though his face is blurry, Sam knows Bucky well enough to see the clench of his jaw as he calculates his next move. Too late does he see the man on the right come around and pistol whip Bucky in the head.

He almost throws up seeing his friend go limp like a dead bird shot out of the sky.

They throw him in the trunk. It looks damaged, barely fitting together and latching. Within 30 seconds, the men get into the car, start it up, and disappear. 

“How long after this did we show up?” One of the officers asks.

The clerk looks up at him, confused. 

“¿Cuánto tiempo después de esto aparecimos?” Sharon repeats in Spanish. 

“Probablemente unos 15 minutos más o menos.” The man fumbles out an answer.

Sharon and Sam exchange glances.

“I’m guessing,” Sharon says, turning her hard glare to the officers. “That you’ve already put out an APB on the vehicle and you have the highways blocked off.”

The officers look more nervous than children who’ve just broken a window.

“We’ve definitely done that.” One officer says. The others mumble unconvincingly. If Sam’s hands weren’t shaking so bad he might have strangled one of them. Or all of them. Not very Captain America like. But he isn’t Captain America right now. He’s Sam Wilson, and he’s damn worried about his stupid friend.

“Get on it. Now.” Sam barks.

The three officers almost trip over each other in their haste to exit the tiny office. One begins shouting orders into a radio at his shoulder, determination shining in his eyes. 

“Sam—“ Sharon pulls him aside as he makes strides to leave. “Not that I don’t have faith in the system, but I got a partial on that plate. I’ll run it through my guys and then we’ll get there potentially sooner.”

“Then let’s go.” Sam growls. 

Sharon nods and steps out of the office. The officers barely give them a second glance as they stride down the hallway and back out into the cool morning air. 

“We’re coming, Bucky.” Sam whispers more to himself than anything. “Just hang on a little longer.”

Chapter Text

Bucky Barnes

Bucky awakes to an ear-splitting scream.

A monster.

It’s terrifying, adrenaline crushing, and mortifying. It chills him to his bones, leaving him panting for breath wishing for an end to a seemingly endless nightmare. It takes him far too long to recognize the scream as his own. 

Electricity courses through his body, emanating from that fucking thing in his arm. It feels like someone rammed a rebar through his bicep then ran into him with an iron tank. It’s as if every nerve in his body is being crushed, inflated, crushed again, then stabbed with a million tiny needles. 

It is so painful and raw that Bucky can barely register his own thoughts. 

The energy stops, and Bucky sags. His body twitches uncontrollably, spasming as ghost pains pulse through him. 

He realizes he is securely bound and sitting on a chair. Or rather, he is bound to the chair. There’s no way he would have stayed sitting in it otherwise. 

" Долг. " A voice speaks from somewhere vaguely near him. 

" Проржавевший. "

" Печь. "

" Рассвет ."

" Семнадцать ."

" Доброкачественный ."

" Девять ."

" Возвращение домой ."

" Один. "

" Грузовой вагон. ” 

The voice concludes and a silence fills the space. 

“You do know—,” Bucky rasps, voice unbearably scratchy. “Those don’t work anymore.”

He squints, bleary eyes scanning for his assailants. He finds them, two men dressed in dark clothing. One has a phone in his hand, and he appears to be reading off from it. Bucky looks for any hint of mercy on their faces. He finds none. Probably because only their eyes are visible, thick masks covering their facial expressions. 

“And are you reading those from a phone?” He rasps. “Seriously?”

The two men exchange a look. 

“Shock him again–”

“Wait–no–” 

Bucky’s cry is cut short as another wave of electricity washes over him. It blinds him, all he sees is white hot bolts cutting across his vision. They lash at him, burning his skin and his muscles. It hurts especially bad where the bullet tore through him, his leg burns there. Oh how he loathes this pain. As much as he hates the Winter Soldier and what Hydra did to him, he suddenly misses the high tolerance for pain. 

The electricity stops and Bucky slumps, energy spent. 

The two men begin reciting off his former trigger words again. Bucky’s mind is in such a haze he almost laughs at the ridiculousness of the situation. These men, whoever they are, they can shock him, torture him, and read those damn words off as much as they want. It won’t change the truth. The truth that the Winter Soldier is… gone.

It is gone though, right?

Bucky finds himself suddenly anxious, awaiting the end of the list as much as he expects the men are. Will he turn? Will that awful monster resurface? 

"... Один. "

" Грузовой вагон. ”

Silence. 

Bucky breathes raggedly. His eyes remain closed. The currents of electric shock left trails of aftershocks running through him. It reminds him of one of those fireworks, the ones that explode then have mini explosions off each branch a few seconds after the initial explosion. He shivers, too tired to groan. 

“Soldier?” One of the men ask. 

“...” Bucky barely responds. 

“What was that? What did he say?”

Footsteps sound and then Bucky’s hair is roughly yanked so that his face points at the ceiling. 

“Soldier?” One of the men shouts into his face. “Respond, now!

“...fuck you…” Bucky grits out. 

“Agh,” The man exclaims in disgust, dropping Bucky’s head. Bucky lets it hang, not feeling the drive to lift it. 

The two men begin conversing softly. Bucky recognizes some of what they’re saying, but it takes him all too long to realize that they are speaking English. 

“...they won’t be happy about this.” One of the men mutters to the other. “They’ve already spent too much time and effort getting him to us.”

“Well what the fuck do you recommend we do then?” The other whispers harshly. “Brainwash him all over again? If the dozen trials to trigger the soldier didn’t work, nothing will. Idiot!”

Bucky watches the one recoil from the other as a slap is thrown his way. 

“What we do is we tell the Power Broker that the lead ended up dead, just like they thought it might.” The first one grabs the other by his hood. “And you get to be the one to make the call.”

He shoves the second man roughly away from him. The second man scampers away, disappearing from Bucky’s tired eyes. The first man scowls, then shakes his head. 

He steps back towards Bucky, eyes scanning him over. Bucky looks up into his face, his dark expression and brooding eyes. He sees there a calm calculation, an emotion he recognizes. One he has born many times over.

“So…now what?” Bucky winces as he tries to sit up straighter. “I assume your plan was to ‘wake up’ the Winter Soldier. That didn’t work. Are you going to kill me now?”

“You like the sound of your own voice.” The man deadpans. 

“Not really.” Bucky grimaces. “Just wondering how long I’m going to be here for.”

The man smirks, or at least Bucky thinks he does under his mast, as if actually amused by Bucky’s honesty. He slides a chair over then sinks into it. He keeps his eyes on Bucky the whole time. It doesn’t really unnerve Bucky. He is too used to situations like this. As horrible as that thought is, he finds himself unusually reassured that if these men wanted him dead, he would already be there. 

“The Power Broker.” Bucky states, trying a new angle. “That’s who you’re working for, right?”

The man blinks. 

“I overheard you talking.” Bucky winces again as a fresh stab of pain echoes from his leg. He glances down at it, noticing for the first time that it isn’t gushing blood like it had been before. Instead, a layer of something shiny and silver covered it, wrapping around his leg multiple times. 

“Oh,” He says, feeling light headed. “Thanks for duct taping my bullet hole. ”

The man shrugs. 

“You would have bled out.” He states as if a friendly neighbor pointing out a crack in Bucky’s fence. “That would have been very messy.”

“Sure.” Bucky swallows. “And by that I assume that you or the Power Broker don't want me dead. So what are we waiting around for?”

His mouth moves under the mask again, and Bucky assumes another smirk. 

“You sound a lot like my brother.” He replies. 

“Your brother…Oh that’s nice.” Bucky fights the urge to roll his eyes. “Is that your other friend that you sent outside? Your brother?”

“Very insightful.”

“Not really.” Bucky grimaces. “He’s only other person here.”

The man doesn’t react this time, instead he sits there as if calculating the right way to break all of Bucky’s bones. Not exactly reassuring. In fact, the calmness of his captor throws Bucky off more than he expects. Clearly the Winter Soldier isn’t making an appearance today, and yet…the man whose job it was to bring the Soldier around doesn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. 

The Power Broker…

Flashes of bullets whizzing by Bucky’s face and body in Madripoor come back to him. That had been the Power Broker. And wasn’t it the Power Broker who had ordered the re-creation of the Super Soldier Serum there too?

Whatever they want with him, Bucky isn’t too keen on finding out. 

“So what’s the plan now?” He asks again, circling the conversation back to where they’d started. “Do you want the arm? It’s more valuable than me now. Well it probably is, I’ve never totaled it up. Or I’ve got intel on Natzi’s that would make a history professor go nuts–”

“How about you shut up?” The man says, lifting the corner of his shirt to show the glint of a gun handle. 

Bucky swallows, feeling the pulse of his leg spike painfully. He does not want another bullet in him, lethal or not. 

“Y-yeah, or we can do that.”

He lets out a sigh, letting his head hang again.

This situation is so shitty. It’s baffling even to him that he managed to land in a situation like this where he is powerless. Even if he tried to, he wouldn't know where to start in suppressing the enhanced strength, healing, durability, and quickness that the serum gave him. Hell, there were days where he wanted to drop everything about himself that made him the Winter Soldier, even if that person was gone. And yet, here he was without any helpful remnants of the Soldier and yet all the trauma and guilt unhelpfully making him feel like a wolf in sheep’s skin. 

At least you know that Sam doesn’t hate you now.

True, he thinks. And, maybe by some miracle, Sam is actually on his way to find him. He had said they were tracking his call. Whoever they were. 

“Hey Phi,” A voice calls before the brother who walked out appears back in the room. “We got a problem.”

“What?” The man sitting across from Bucky, or Phi, says. 

“Broker didn’t answer the phone.”

“So?”

The brother lets out a short, clipped laugh, like he can’t believe his brother doesn’t understand him. 

“So?” He challenges. “So that means we’re screwed. We’ve got Captain fucking America on our tail along with who knows how many cops, and the Broker is leaving us out to dry. They’re screwing our asses and I’m not about to take the fall.”

Phi glances at Bucky, meeting his eyes for a brief moment. Bucky senses the anxiety twisting just under the surface of that calm demeanor. It’s in the twitch of his right hand, the tap of his finger on his knee. He’s realizing that things are spiraling out of control. 

Perfect. 

Bucky practically lives his life in out of control situations. This should provide him with an opportunity.  

“Then we’ll take him to the auction.” Phi says at last. “Sell him to the Tinkerer. He can deal with the law fallout and we’ll be off the hook with the Power Broker.”

The brother’s eyes widen. 

“You want to make it all the way to New York with him?” He exclaims, pointing at Bucky. “We barely made it three miles with him in the trunk. He’s a liability and I vote we get rid of him here and cut our losses.”

“You could also let me go–”

“SHUT UP!” Both brother’s thunder at Bucky’s attempt to reason. 

Bucky winces at the response. A nasty headache builds at the base of his skull, and he’s beyond hungry and thirsty. He’s had just about enough of this bullshit, and if he can do a bit more to rile up these psychos then so be it. 

“Do you really think that auctioning off a broken soldier on the black market is going to get you guys off the hook?” Bucky retorts. “That will just put you on a different list. And trust me, that’s not a list you want to be on.”

“I said shut up .” Phi says in a low tone, taking a threatening step towards Bucky. 

Bucky swallows, knowing that what he’s about to do is colossally stupid. 

“Make me.” He glares in defiance, putting as much bravado on his face as he can.

It does the trick.

Phi’s expression morphs into one of pure frustration and anger. He swallows, letting a deep breath exhale through his nose.

 “Go get the car ready.” He orders his brother. 

The other man looks up, sees the fury in his brother's eyes, and scampers away and out of the room. Bucky listens as his footsteps retreat and then a door slams.

Phi grips his knees so tightly that his knuckles start turning yellow. He stands, finally, and pockets his gun. 

“You know,” He says slowly. “It would be my absolute pleasure to make you shut up.”

He takes slow, calculated steps towards Bucky. Perfect. 

Bucky doesn’t let him get close. 

Performing a move he’s done dozens of times, Bucky hurls his weight to the side and topples himself and the chair he is on in one fell swoop. He crashes onto the floor in front of Phi, and in the moment of surprise the other main fails to see Bucky’s leg kick out.

Phi goes down with a nasty crack in his leg. 

Bucky on the other hand, rolls and finds his strength sapping away like smoke in the wind. Damn his normal human limitation! If only he could pull that wretched thing out of his arm.

He kicks at the chair he is still bound to, cursing as Phi bellows in pain near him. Bucky’s heart hammers as he finally hears some of the plastic cracking. A little more…yes…YES! 

The legs of the chair break off, and Bucky is able to roll onto his knees. 

Unfortunately, Phi is also getting up, eyes blazing with anger under his mask. 

“I’ll kill you!” He seethes, sitting up and clutching his broken leg. “You’re DEAD.”

Bucky doesn’t let him say anything else. He spins on his knees and, ignoring the agonizing pain in his own leg, slams the butt of the chair directly into Phi’s face. 

Phi goes down like a toppled wall. Blood pools under his face. 

Bucky breathes heavily, leaning over to gather himself. Phi appears to be out cold. Good. Maybe just-normal-human Bucky isn’t good for nothing after all.

Bringing himself up on shaky legs, Bucky limps over to the nearest wall. Then he slams himself into it. Backwards.

The chair splinters. Another slam of his body and it cracks. Two more times and Bucky is tied to nothing more than a couple of pieces of plastic. 

He disposes of the now loose ropes, limps forward a few steps, then falls face-first onto the ground. 

There he groans, letting the pure exhaustion wash over him. His body aches from top to bottom. He doesn’t care to catalog the worst of it. No. He just wants to get out of here. Right now. Plus, if he can fight the other brother, there’s a free car outside with his name on it. A free ticket out of here back to DC or wherever the hell Sam is.

Bucky lets a delirious smile twitch across his face. 

Sam doesn’t hate him.

He lurches to his feet, swaying as the warehouse spins. 

Phi is down, still bleeding silently on the ground. The  brother is nowhere to be seen. Bucky frowns, something about that not seeming right. He stoops down to grab at Phi’s gun which lays next to the man. 

Bucky’s leg gives him an angry throb with each limping step, but he is pleasantly surprised that the shock damage on his body is enough to make those throbs seem minor. Take what little luck where you can he muses. 

Staggering through the door and quickly moving through the rest of the warehouse and outside, Bucky sucks in a refreshing breath of mid-morning air. The sky is clear above him as he spills out into a small lane between the warehouse and another just like it. Then he hears the click of a gun. 

“You move and I shoot her.”

He whirls, turning to see the missing, now found, brother, standing a few yards behind him. His mask still covers his face, and he holds his gun in one hand. It’s not pointed at Bucky, instead, it’s leveled directly at the back of the woman from the gas station. 

Her face twists in pure terror, eyes pleading with Bucky, a complete stranger , to do as the man says. 

Bucky’s stomach flips. He had completely forgotten about her, especially after his rude awakening. How could he be so stupid? So careless?

“Put your arms in the air and drop to your knees.” The brother commands. “And drop the gun.”

Slowly, defeated, Bucky does as instructed. His leg protests as he sinks his weight onto his knees then remains there. He places the gun on the ground with a light clink. 

“You’re not worth this trouble.” The man sneers down at him, manhandling the woman to stay positioned in front of his barrel. Tears stream down her face. Silent sobs wrack her frame. 

“Hey!” The brother calls. “Phi?”

Silence. 

“PHI?” He calls again.

Bucky keeps his eyes trained downwards, trying to appear unknowing.

“What did you do to him?” The brother demands. 

Bucky stays silent. 

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” 

He shakes the woman who cries in fear. Then he slams the butt of the gun against her head and she crumples like a child’s block tower with the foundations knocked out.

Bucky’s eyes widen.

“Leave her alone.” He pleads, aware of how little he is capable of. 

“Then answer my question.” The brother seethes, pointing his gun at the now unconscious woman. “Where is Phi?” 

“He’s dead.” Bucky breathes. “He’s dead on the floor inside. You can go see for yourself.”

It’s not necessarily a lie. He genuinely doesn’t know if Phi survived the blow he dealt him. Part of him hopes the brother will go check, call his bluff. It would give Bucky enough time to…

To what? Pick up the woman and limp away with her in his arms? He barely has strength to carry himself, let alone another person. He could go for the gun though. Then he could shoot the brother. 

It’s impossible to see the emotion crossing the face under the brother’s mask, but Bucky can tell from the way his fingers clench across the gun handle and the way his posture stiffens that the sudden revelation about Phi isn’t sitting well with him. 

“Get in the trunk.” 

The order is stiff and cold. Bucky swallows. He glances at the gun near him. 

“NOW!” The brother shouts. “I’ll kill her.”

He looms over the form of the unconscious woman, gun aimed directly at her head. Bucky desperately wishes she wasn’t a part of this. How easy it would be to grab the weapon glinting at his knee…his fingers twitch just thinking about it. 

He considers going for it anyways, hesitating for just a moment too long. 

Something electric snaps within him. Then white fire flashes across his vision, blinding him and burning him with a thousand needle pricks on every inch of his skin. He collapses, crying out in exhausted pain. 

He can’t breathe. Can’t think. Was Sam coming for him?

The device in his arm sparks and injects him with a current so violent Bucky feels like someone connected it to a powerline. 

Then, just as suddenly as they began, the shocks fade. 

Bucky blinks his eyes, groaning. His face is pressed against the asphalt, and he tastes rock and dirt in his mouth. His body spasms in the aftershocks, and his heartbeat throbs painfully in his skull. 

“Shock him again’” A pained voice says. “ I don’t want him trying anything.”

Damn it.  

It’s Phi. Bucky can’t see him, but he sounds as upset as a man who lost a fight against a wounded man tied to a chair should. That answers his question on if the man survived. Doesn't mean he likes the answer. 

“Got it.”

“Wait–”

Bucky’s desperate attempt to plea falls on deaf ears as his cry morphs into that monstrous cry from before. He tenses under the pressure of the electricity coursing through him. It rips him apart, making him feel like his chest is caving in and inflating simultaneously. 

“Give him more, I want him unconscious before we leave.””

The words seem to swim around through his mind before the intensity of the shocks double. Bucky knows he can withstand a lot of shock, but even this is taking too high a toll on his mind. He feels himself slipping. He feels the jaw of the dark monster in his mind waiting to close around him. 

He gives one last heave of effort, of power, of anything to try and fight through the haze of white hot electricity before he toes across an invisible threshold of tolerance and everything goes dark. 

Chapter Text

Sam Wilson

Sam knows Bucky isn’t here even before he slams Sharon’s car door shut. The definitive thud reverberates through the air, a haunting echo of the service station last night.

The walkway between two identical gray warehouses is alive with flashing red and blue lights, enough to make an American flag jealous. Sam feels a flicker of gratitude toward the local police force for their cooperation, but his stomach churns with unease. The silence is wrong—too still, too empty.

“Sam.” Sharon’s voice cuts through his thoughts. She meets his eyes across the hood of her car, her phone glowing faintly in her hand. “My guys pulled camera footage. That car was parked outside this one.”

She jabs a thumb toward the warehouse behind them.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Sam asks, his stomach tightening as he scans the alley.

Sharon nods, and they slip past the officers, ducking into the warehouse before anyone can protest. The heavy metal door clatters shut behind them, the sound echoing eerily in the dark hallway.

Sam gestures for Sharon to take the lead as she unholsters her gun. Her silhouette is rigid, ready, every muscle taut. Sam keeps close, his footsteps soft against the concrete floor.

They emerge into a larger space lit dimly by clouded skylights. The air is thick with dust, the smell of stale wood and rust hanging faintly. Sam peers past Sharon to take in the scene: splintered furniture, dark stains streaked across the floor, a few frayed ropes tinged with red.

He crouches down, picking up one of the ropes, his brow furrowed. “He’s not here, Sharon.” His voice is hoarse, the words heavier than he expects. “I don’t know what this place was, but they aren’t here—or they aren’t here anymore.”

Sharon doesn’t respond immediately, her fingers flying across her phone’s screen. Sam glances back, noting the tension in her shoulders. It’s the first time since Bucky’s disappearance that she looks truly rattled.

“Sharon?” he prompts. “Do you have something?”

“Maybe.” Her tone is clipped, frustration bleeding through.

Sam straightens, scanning the warehouse. A glint of red catches his eye—a trail of blood leading out through the same door they entered. He pulls out his flashlight, following the droplets until he finds a small pool outside in the alley.

The blood pools as though someone stood here, waiting. Sam’s jaw tightens. Bucky’s blood? Most likely. He exhales slowly, searching the ground for more clues.

A commotion from the police line pulls his attention. He hesitates, glancing once more at the bloodstained asphalt as if the answers he needs will suddenly appear. When they don’t, he strides toward the crowd of officers.

“We won’t hurt you, ma’am,” one officer says.

Sam cranes his neck to see a woman—messy ponytail, tear-streaked dirt on her face—speaking frantically. Recognition hits him instantly.

“You!” he calls, pushing through the line. “You were with Bucky!”

The woman flinches, her eyes wide with fear.

“Sir,” an officer interjects, frowning at Sam. “We need a minute—”

“She was with Bucky!” Sam snaps, pointing at the woman. “I need to know what she knows.”

The woman trembles but eventually speaks, her voice shaking. “They knocked me out. One of them hit me with his gun. I—I woke up over there.” She gestures toward the driveway between the warehouses.

“Did they leave you here?” Sam asks sharply.

She blinks, as if realizing the strangeness of it for the first time. “I don’t know.”

Sam lets the sentiment sit as the officers throw more questions her way. He listens with half an ear, thinking through the possibilities. Did the men realize they don’t need a hostage anymore because Bucky is cooperating with them? Did they find some other leverage to use against him? Or maybe, do they plan on killing him and leaving the woman was just an attempt to get rid of a trail? All the options make his stomach flip and twist.. 

“Sam!”

Sharon’s voice rings out over the din of police chatter and radios beeping. The former hustler’s hair bobs as she sprints out of the warehouse towards Sam. 

“One of my guys got a hit.” She explains as Sam makes up the distance between them. “Silver car, driving away from here with a kicked out taillight?”

Sam feels a flicker of hope. 

“Sounds like our guys.” He breathes. 

“Let’s go.”

____________________________________

Bucky Barnes

The kicked-out taillight of the old Honda lets light into the trunk as Bucky’s head slams against the side, jolting him awake. 

He groans, everything filtering into his mind at once. The layered pain, the woman from the gas station, the thugs who took him. He tastes the unmistakable stale iron of blood in his mouth. He thinks there’s a cut on his face. Maybe from when he was last knocked unconscious?

The car abruptly jerks again, and Bucky finds his nose crashing into the carpeted felt of the trunk, inhaling what smells like 20 year old rubber and oil. They haven’t replaced his restraints this time. Should he be grateful for that?

A voice in his head assures him that, yes, he should be very grateful. This is good news. He can escape and kill those damn–

The rational side of his head catches up in time to cut off that thought. Not the time. Focus on getting out, then you can…

Do what?

Escape. Get caught again. Escape again. What the hell is he doing? What the hell is going on? 

Just to be sure it’s still there, Bucky finds his fingers unconsciously feeling up his arm until they brush against the unknown device buried in his flesh. Great. Yeah, this is really looking up for him. 

Maybe a life as a human, without the power of the Winter Soldier, will be good for him. If this is to be his lot in life, can he really be mad? 

Again, the rational side of his head chides. Not the time ! Sam is on his trail. If he escapes again, he just has to hold out long enough for Sam to find him. It’s far from a perfect plan, but it does give him the bolster he needs to once again kick open the trunk of the car. Again. 

Bucky has to squint at the absolute onslaught of daylight that bombards him. He is sure he is a sight to behold, one of the world's most feared assassins, stuffed into a trunk that fits him poorly, unable to see because of something so mild as the sun. 

The car immediately swerves, and Bucky has the notion that they are moving quite fast before he once again slams into the car lining. Pulling himself up, he finds the world passing by in a blur. He shakes off the daze, blinking at the light, and takes in the scene more fully. 

Road signs fly past as the old silver car cruises past a number of alarmed looking drivers. Bucky can hear the exhaust screaming in his ear while rubber and asphalt rise towards his nose. The sun illuminates the tree-lined corridor of highway as if nothing else exists save for the endless rows of pines and maples, stretching on as far as the eye can see. 

The car jerks abruptly to the left, and Bucky is thrown back in amid a cacophony of honking. He curses, the lid of the trunk crashing back down. Just in time, he throws his vibranium arm out to catch it before it shuts completely. 

Were he at his full capacity, Bucky wouldn’t hesitate to rip the trunk hood off entirely, break the back window, and make the men stop the car. Guns be damned, his arm could deflect most bullets anyways, assuming he could block them in time. Not like last time when he stupidly let the bullet rip right through him. 

He rises for another go with the trunk, lifting the hood enough to peer out at the highway again. Several new cars alongside them give Bucky an alarmed look, but he can’t give them attention now. He needs to get the men to stop the car so he can get out. 

Instead, as if they’d read his mind, the car accelerates abruptly forcing the lid down and Bucky back into the trunk. 

“Sam–” He growls to no one in particular. “It’s about time for your ass to show up.”

____________________________________

Sam Wilson

“There!” Sam exclaims, startling Sharon who nearly swerved into a car in the lane adjacent. 

“God–” She swears. “Next time just grab the wheel why don’t you–”

“There’s Bucky!” Sam interjects, pointing at a trashed silver Honda several cars ahead of them. 

Sharon squints against the sun glaring off metal clad cars around him. Sam inhales, detecting the acrid smell of diesel and exhaust mixing with his own anxiety. 

“Are you sure?” Is all Sharon responds with. 

“Yes!”

Without another word, she slams her foot down on the gas and punches her car forward. Sam is pressed back in his seat, mind racing as Sharon narrowly avoids rear-ending a car by swerving around them. 

“Did you get your US license renewed?” He glances at her, determination written all over her face. 

“No.”

Cars honk and tires squeal as she abruptly turns right and squeezes between a gap that no one in their right mind would have gone for. 

Sam must be visibly sweating because a moment later Sharon snaps at him. 

“Close your eyes if it makes you feel better.”

He does, briefly. Trust is a strong word, and Sam isn’t sure if Sharon deserves the full weight that the word places on her. Cars continue honking, and he eventually forces his eyes open as the car swerves enough times to make him feel sick. 

His eyes settle on the old silver car which Sharon has positioned them right behind. Sam has a clear picture now of the slight bounce in the trunk lid. It’s open and bobs as the car accelerates and slows with the flow of traffic. 

Wait, no. It’s opening up and down because…

Hell. 

Bucky is in the trunk. 

“Shit!” Sam breaths. 

“What now?” Sharon asks without taking her eyes off the road. 

Sam thinks. He doesn’t have the suit. He doesn’t have the shield. Sharon has a few guns stashed somewhere in her car and probably on her person, but she wouldn’t have asked him for ideas if she had a fix all solution in the glove box. He studies the road noting the busy flow of uninvolved and oblivious people driving alongside them. 

“How far back are our police friends?” He asks, thinking out loud. “If we can clear the highway and pin the car between us and another police vehicle, we can probably get them to stop without hurting anyone.”

Sharon nods. 

“I can keep close without giving ourselves away.” She glances at him. “You get the police here.”

Sam is already dialing the number in his phone. 

____________________________________

Bucky Barnes

Bucky is sick of being in the trunk of this shitty car. The space does nothing to muffle the engine as his kidnappers move with the flow of traffic. They’ve stopped violently accelerating and slowing because he’s stopped trying to get out. The message is clear, but Bucky has still banged his head into the side enough times to give him a headache for a month.

By now he’s had a few minutes to think about his captors technique, and he thinks he has an idea. Or the start of one. 

If he can push up the lid of the trunk enough to see out, he can wait for the opportune moment to jump out and land on another car. He can surmise that whoever the poor soul is driving his, unbeknownst to them, escape vehicle will slow significantly. Hopefully he can roll over the top and hang on with his metal arm for long enough to get off safely. After all, it’s only a three lane highway from what he can remember. There’s plenty of shoulder, and he guesses they aren’t going more than 55 miles per hour. Or maybe he’s hoping for that last part to be true. He’s survived some pretty severe burns before, but if he gets run over by a car there’s not a lot of hope for him. 

Still, he’d rather be dead than be sold to whatever that auction was the brothers mentioned before. Too bad Sam didn’t get here in time to save him. Bucky smirks a little at the thought, as if him about to do something stupid was a call out to the universe to magically make Sam appear. If only. 

He lifts the lid of the trunk slowly so as not to draw attention. The brothers don’t seem to notice because the car continues at its same pace. Bucky sucks in another focused breath, then pushes the lid up enough to see out. 

And is profoundly disappointed to see nothing but an empty highway. 

He frowns, remembering the packed lanes from last time he peeked out about 20 minutes ago or so. Where did everyone go?

So focused on the empty lanes behind them, Bucky fails to notice a small, newer dark grey car driving alongside his captor’s car on the same side as the shoulder. It seems that the car is purposefully trying to stay directly to the side of them. It slows when they do, accelerates the same. It’s as if they’re trying to stay in a blind spot.

That could work. Might be better actually, he can possibly dive off the car and plan on rolling into the much softer grass and– wait. 

Was that…

…SAM?

Bucky blinks three times and squints out of his thin crack. Then he laughs. A sense of relief hits him so hard he almost drops the trunk lid on his head. Because it is Sam. He’s sitting in the passenger side of the car, on the far side away from Bucky, but his brow is furrowed in that stupidly concerned way that only Sam can do. He’s focused, keeping his eyes locked on the trunk. 

Bucky can’t help grinning like an idiot, even hidden as he is. Sam is HERE. To rescue him. To help. Because they ARE friends. 

As a secondary observation, Bucky notes that the driver of the other vehicle is none other than Sharon Carter of all people. How Sam managed to wrangle her into helping him rescue Bucky is beyond him, but he’s glad all the same. Sharon has some amazing if not inexplicable resources at her disposal. 

He’s practically home free. 

A siren sounds, and Bucky shifts to look out the other side of the crack at an approaching police car. The red and blue lights are blinding, even in broad daylight. There’s two police vehicles, one that flanks his captor’s car on the left and another that takes up the rear. 

Bucky grins again. Perfect. 

Unsurprisingly, the brothers begin speeding up. Well, now was as good a time as any. 

Bucky throws the lid of the trunk up, bracing himself for the abrupt swerving. The wind rips at his clothes, roaring in his ears. It stinks of exhaust with a hint of humidity. And, as predicted, the swerving comes, far more aggressively. 

The brothers must know their gig is up because they throw the car so hard to the right that Bucky almost flies out. His metal arm keeps an iron grip on the side of the trunk, and even without super strength it still leaves a dent. 

“BUCKY!”

Over the booming din of the roadway and police sirens, Bucky’s eyes alight on the window of Sharon’s car. It’s rolled down and Sam is, rather comically, leaning over Sharon to yell out of it. To her credit, Sharon is doing amazing at maneuvering on the road despite Sam’s body blocking a good portion of her view. 

“WHAT?” He yells back at Sam, clinging to the trunk for dear life as the brothers swerve the other way. 

“JUMP ONTO THE CAR!”

“NO WAY IN HELL IS HE JUMPING ON MY CAR!” Sharon all but screams back making Sam cringe. 

“YOU KNOW,” Bucky calls back, wincing as he car throws his weight onto his bad leg. “I WAS ALREADY PLANNING ON DOING THAT!”

“GREAT!” Sam gives him a grin.

“BARNES YOU ARE NOT JUMPING ON MY CAR!” Sharon says simultaneously while shooting him a glare. She curses as the brothers try to ram into her. 

Bucky curls over the back of the trunk, freeing up his human arm to catch the trunk before it slams into him. If they can slow down for even five seconds he could get out!

“I NEED TO JUMP ON SOMEONE’S CAR!” He yells back into the wind as the brothers even out again. 

Sharon flicks her eyes to meet his before gesturing at the cop cars on Bucky’s right. Bucky’s stomach lurches along with the car as once again the brothers begin some desperate swerving. The cop cars are just as close in proximity to Sharon’s car. Bucky could just as easily jump out onto one of their hoods. He still growls in annoyance as he prepares himself to do just that. 

“FINE.” He snaps, giving Sharon and Sam a verbal confirmation. He doesn’t wait to see their reactions. 

Propping himself up on his good leg and holding up the lid of the trunk, Bucky tries to feel for any pattern in the veering car. If he can plan this right, once the brothers pull to their right or accelerate again, he can use the momentum to leap out, hopefully finding some handhold on the car with his metal arm. Hanging on won’t be an issue since his metal arm doesn’t strain or get tired the same way his human one does. 

He breathes out, mentally counting down as the car swerves the wrong direction. Just another moment and…

BANG

BANG

BANG

A tire on the cop car to Bucky’s right explodes in a shower of gunfire. He ducks as his human instincts scream at him how not -bulletproof he is right now. Not that he’s ever been bulletproof.

“BUCKY!” Sam’s voice screams out over the commotion. 

The sirens on the car scream as the car immediately slows and begins tumbling along the highway behind the caravan. Bucky watches the commotion with a note of alarm. He prays the officers inside escaped any serious harm, but in a few seconds the car is a blip in the distance on the road. The other cop car comes up close behind Bucky. 

With eyes widening, Bucky sees another officer in the passenger seat readying a weapon. Ready to return fire. He reads her lips, sees her frantic gesture at Sharon’s car:

GO! GET OUT BEFORE WE SHOOT!

Swallowing, Bucky shifts himself yet again. The brothers aren’t swerving or accelerating anymore. Probably because they’re getting ready to shoot at Sharon! Damn it!

Gritting his teeth against the wind, noise, and throbbing pain that fails to escape him, Bucky tries to catch Sam’s eyes. His friend is looking in panic back at the cop car, now far behind them. He whirls back around to watch for more gunfire, surely connecting the dots as Bucky had. They meet eyes for a brief moment. 

Bucky shoots him a look that says, get ready. Sam’s eyes widen, and he starts animatedly shouting. Bucky can’t hear him anymore as he braces himself on the edge of the car and hurls himself out.

For a fleeting moment, Bucky hangs suspended in the air, as if defying gravity itself. He sees every detail—the individual cracks and pebbles scattered across the asphalt, the faint shimmer of heat waves rising from the roadway, the gleam of Sharon’s car speeding below him. The air tastes faintly metallic, mingled with the acrid fumes of exhaust. The roar of the chase dulls, his senses narrowing to a single point as time slows to a crawl.

Then reality crashes back.

Bucky slams into the hood of Sharon’s car with the force of a battering ram. Pain blooms instantly as the air is knocked from his lungs, his chest colliding hard against the unforgiving metal. His torso protests, sharp pain lancing through his ribs, leaving him gasping for breath.

Barely conscious of his actions, he grips at the car’s frame with his metal arm. His fingers clamp onto the connecting edge of the driver’s-side window and windshield, the jarring impact sending vibrations up his arm and into his shoulder. The car lurches beneath him, and he feels the unsettling groan of bending metal as his weight momentarily distorts the hood’s surface.

For a heartbeat, he’s frozen, his chest heaving in shallow gasps, each breath a stab of pain. The sounds of the world rush back—the screech of tires, the wind whipping past his ears, Sam shouting something incomprehensible. Gritting his teeth, Bucky steadies himself, ignoring the searing ache spreading across his torso.

BANG

BANG

BANG

The deafening BANG rings out again, followed by a sharp hiss as the runaway car dips sharply to one side. Bucky glances up just in time to see the shredded remains of a back tire flapping uselessly against the rim. The vehicle swerves violently, tires screeching as the driver struggles to maintain control.

“BUCKY!” Someone screams—Sam? Sharon? He can’t tell. “HOLD ON!”

“Great idea,” he wheezes, mostly to himself. “I was definitely thinking of not doing that.”

The car jerks to the left, and Bucky’s stomach twists with it. He shuts his eyes, tightening his grip instinctively as the chaos around him crescendos. The screech of rubber on asphalt mingles with the distant crack of gunfire, the sounds blending into a disorienting roar.

He feels the pull of momentum as Sharon’s car veers in an arc he can’t make sense of. The world spins too much, the movements too erratic to follow. Then, suddenly, it all stops.

Bucky blinks, his vision swimming as he takes in the scene. The getaway car has come to a halt just ahead, its tires mangled and useless. Sharon’s car sits sideways in the road, a barricade between the brothers and any chance of escape. Behind them, flashing lights signal the police closing in.

Movement draws his attention. The brothers are scrambling inside, angling their guns toward him through the windshield.

“Get down!” Sharon yells.

Before he can react, a hand grabs his belt and yanks him off the hood. Disoriented, Bucky flails, but the same hands steady him, guiding him to the side of the car.

“Sam?” he gasps, struggling to catch his breath.

“Yeah, buddy. I’ve got you,” Sam’s deep voice reassures him.

BANG

BANG

Two shots ring out, sharp and final. Then, silence. Bucky flinches, waiting for more, but none come. Slowly, he peers around the side of the car.

Sharon stands in front of the runaway car, her gun still raised, the barrel smoking faintly. Even from here, the flashes of red and the slumped silhouettes in the car make it clear—there’s no one left alive inside.

“Sharon!” Sam calls, keeping a steadying hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “You good?”

Sharon lowers her gun with a controlled exhale. “They’re gone.”

Bucky leans against the cool metal of Sharon’s car, his breaths shallow and uneven. Now that the chaos has settled, the sharp ache in his ribs is impossible to ignore. Each breath is a battle, but at least the fight is over. For now.

Sharon holsters her gun, her gaze lingering on the bloody wreckage of the runaway car. For a moment, she doesn’t move, her silhouette framed by the fading daylight. Then she turns toward them.

“I thought your days of getting kidnapped were over Barnes.” She says lightly, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. 

Bucky watches as she surveys the scene one last time, the weight of everything they’ve been through etched faintly in the lines of her face. He knows better than to thank her—it’s not her style. Still, something in her posture speaks volumes: she’s not liking what she sees.

“I thought you were on a permanent vacation.” He huffs back. 

“Surprise.” She shrugs. “I’m back. You should be grateful Sam and I happened to be visiting when your message came through.”

Huh.

“Thanks.” He rasps, going against his earlier sentiment. 

Sam, who Bucky is still having a hard time believing is really there, engages Sharon in a conversation that he quickly tunes out. He is exhausted, hurting everywhere, and ready to sit down for at least five minutes of goddamned piece and quiet. Police begin swarming the scene, and Bucky thinks he hears someone talking about the officers in the downed car being sent to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries. 

Good. 

Good. 

Blinking a few times, Bucky realizes he’s now sitting, back leaning against Sharon’s car. When did that happen? Does he even care? Not right now. 

“Hey Buck.” 

Sam. 

He gazes up to see his friend crouching down by him. 

“They’ll have an ambulance here in a few minutes.” Sam says. “You look like…well, you look like you lost a few rounds with a tank.”

“Yeah.” Bucky sighs.”Feels about like it.”

Sam smiles. 

“You made for a pretty good hood ornament. If your “glaring at the world until it gets out of my way” gig doesn’t end up working for you, you’ve got plenty of other options to consider.” He laughs. 

It's a good sound to hear. 

Despite wanting to, and he really does want to, Bucky doesn’t glare back at Sam’s remark. Instead, he joins his friend in an admittedly painful but heartfelt laugh. 

Chapter Text

Bucky Barnes

The next few hours pass in such a blur that Bucky’s memories filter through like someone trying to stay awake for a movie but falling asleep anyways. He remembers being helped into the ambulance by Sam and several worried looking med-techs, being stabbed with what felt like a dozen needles, flashes of light on the ceiling, and now this. The pale green walls of what must be a hospital room.

He must have been given sedatives at some point  because his chest has been bandaged and his gunshot wound has a thick layer of gauze wrapped around it. He also feels a thick cloud of haze in his head that’s only faintly reminiscent of the drug induced haze from the forest. Like cousin drugs.

It’s a relief to say the least.

Bucky breathes in and out steadily for a few minutes, blinking a few times to make sure this all won’t disappear.

The room smells like those new-age cleaning products that he isn’t sure aren’t just acid, but it’s cool and dark in a non-threatening kind of way. It’s cozy, like coming in from a hot summer day to the basement and flopping down onto a couch. Or air conditioning. He keeps forgetting that’s a thing.

Deciding he wants a little more context, Bucky sits up stiffly, wincing at the dull protest from his ribs.

Surprisingly, Sam Wilson is dozing lightly in a chair next to Bucky’s bed. Or maybe that’s not surprising. Bucky remembers the chase, jumping out of the car onto Sharon’s hood, and Sam keeping that reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

He also remembers the cold shoulder Sam gave him less than a week ago. When he’d needed Sam’s assurance that he wasn’t going crazy. That he wasn’t turning back into the Winter Soldier.

Bucky’s skin pickles at the thought. He’s been hearing the soldier the last 24 hours. It’s back—it has to be, right? 

But the brothers, on orders from the fucking Power Broker, couldn’t bring it out. It really is gone…isn’t it. 

But then, why does Bucky still hear it? Why are all the nightmares returning?

He doesn’t realize he’s been zoned out thinking about it until Sam stirs and opens his eyes.

“Whoa.” His friend says, sitting up. “How long have you been sitting there staring at me?”

“I wasn’t staring.” Bucky mutters, surprised at how hoarse his voice is. 

“Yes you were.” Sam insists. “And it’s creepy as shit. Don’t do it anymore.”

Bucky can’t help the breath of laughter that escapes him, even though it makes his ribs ache. 

“Okay, I won’t.” He smiles. “Where the hell are we?”

“Hospital.” His friend replies leaning back. “In Arlington. I had them take us back as close to DC as we could once they stabilized you. You were in pretty bad shape when we finally got to you. Broken ribs, shock burns in and out, not to mention severe blood loss from being shot.”

Bucky mentally catalogues everything Sam says, noting the painful accuracy. 

“Sounds about right.” He muses, rubbing at his leg.

“I don’t understand how you get yourself into these messes.” Sam shakes his head. 

“Thought you were in trouble.” Bucky mumbles.

“Oh yeah, about that.”

Sam digs into his pocket, pulling out two small devices that have seen better days. Bucky recognizes them instantly.

“That was pretty smart thinking, going for your old phone when you realized something was wrong with the new one.” Sam reaches over and hands him the devices. “Yours and mine have definitely been hacked.”

Bucky picks up the mangled flip phone, noting with dismay that it won’t be used as a phone ever again. Maybe he can donate it to a museum. The display can read ‘Old Reliable: Dumb Phone Saves Life.’

“The woman from the gas station.” He remembers suddenly, stomach twisting. “Is she okay?”

Sam meets his eyes for a moment before understanding fills them.

“Yes. She’s been with the police since those goons who took you left her behind at the warehouses. She’s completely fine.”

Relief fills Bucky and he sits back, fingers feeling over the busted casing of one of his phones.

“The guys who did it all said they were working for the Power Broker.” 

“No shit?” Sam raises an eyebrow. 

Bucky nods, taking a sip of water. It’s cool and refreshing on his throat.

“So that whack job from Madripoor is still following us around.” Sam wonders. “He wanted to know if the Winter Soldier was still in there?”

“You’re guess is as good as mine.” Bucky concedes. 

Sam frowns.

“You didn’t see him or anything?”

“No,” Bucky pauses, searching his memory. “They didn’t even tell me directly. I overheard them talking. They made it sound like he’d be pissed, but I don’t know anything more about him than we did in Madripoor.”

“I don’t like the sound of that nut case keeping an eye on you.” Sam said firmly. “I almost wish Sharon hadn’t killed those two before we had a chance to talk to them.”

“Yeah…” Bucky agrees, scratching faintly at his arm. At first, it wasn’t noticeable, but the longer he’s awake, the more he realizes how tired, stiff, and weak he feels. Almost as if he was still totally human and not a super soldier in any way. Indeed, as he feels for the device in his arm, he is hit by a sickening blow when his metal fingers graze the solid disc still embedded in his arm. He realizes now that it must have been the Power Broker who engineered it. Something to inhibit Super Soldier Serum—and who else but the Power Broker had any idea of how to make that stuff?

But for him? For Bucky Barnes, the guy who never asked to be more than just a lieutenant in World War II, what was he to do now but be a monster trapped in a human body? What a torturous way to live out the rest of his life. 

“So they tried to bring out the Winter Soldier?” Sam asks. 

Bucky exhales through his nose, adjusting on the hospital bed. 

“They tried.” He explains. “I luckily wasn’t conscious for most of it.” 

Sam looks at him in concern. 

Bucky’s emotions are hard to hide. He’s still in considerable pain, worried about the Winter Soldier, worried about ever getting the thing in his arm off, and maybe most of all confused about the Power Broker. He doubts this is the last they’ll hear of the mysterious entity. 

“When you were trying to talk to me in DC,” Sam says slowly. “Was there something about the Winter Soldier you wanted to talk about?”

Bucky mentally thanks Sam’s expertise for working with troubled soldiers because there’s no way he wanted to come out and bluntly say that, but he didn’t have to. All he has to do is nod, which he does, and Sam seems to understand. 

“You’re worried it’s back?”

“Yeah.” This time he finds his voice, more scratchy and vulnerable than he likes. But this is Sam. If he can trust anyone, it’s him. Right?

“I’ve been hearing it.” Bucky continues, finding the surface of the hospital sheets suddenly fascinating. “It’s voice. It’s in my thoughts and I can’t sleep. I’m trying to tell myself it’s nothing, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just a monster pretending to be me. I’ll never be more than the axe murderer.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow at his analogy but keeps listening.

“And, I thought if anyone could help me figure it out,” Bucky hesitates. “It would be you. But—“

“But I was an asshole who threw you to the side.”

“It wasn’t like that—“

“I was an asshole.” Sam repeats. “And I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

“I—“ Bucky pauses, words failing him. “I should have just gone to my therapist. That’s what she’s there for right? I shouldn’t have bothered you.” 

An uncomfortable silence fills the room. 

The sheets depict a simple and extremely faint pattern of flowers with bees buzzing between the repeated bunches. It’s all printed in the same blue color that Bucky is surprised his eyes can pick out. 

Sam follows Bucky’s gaze to the patterned sheet. He’s quiet for a beat, then says gently, “You didn’t bother me.”

Bucky doesn’t respond, but his jaw tightens.

“I mean it,” Sam presses. “You didn’t bother me. You reached out. I didn’t answer. That’s on me.”

Bucky shakes his head. “You had other things going on.”

“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have picked up a damn phone.”

The silence stretches again, but this time it doesn’t feel quite as sharp. There’s something softer underneath it now—acknowledgment, maybe. Regret.

Bucky puts up a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“You’re Captain America now. The people need you more than me—”

“No—“ Sam interrupts. "That’s bullshit Bucky and you know it.”

Bucky lets the words die in his mouth and swallows. 

“I’ve been bad at remembering the people who made me who I am.” Sam repeats. “I haven’t had time for my family, for my friends, and especially for the people who had my back when I needed it most.”

He clasps his hands in his lap, looking up to meet Bucky’s eyes.

“I’m sorry Bucky.” His eyes are sincere. “I wasn’t there when you needed me and I don’t know how I can repair that trust.”

Bucky exhales slowly, wishing for anything else in the room to be interesting enough to look at. He settles for a magazine cover on the bedside table this time, something about the Ultimate driving tour of Europe along with a picture of a gleaming yellow car that looks so different from the Chevy Fleetline that Bucky loved so much in the 40’s that he has a hard time believing it’s real.

“It’s fine,” Bucky says, though it clearly isn’t. “I’ve lost a lot more than that.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Sam replies, voice quiet but steady. “I don’t want to be another thing you have to lose.”

That gets Bucky’s attention. His eyes flick over, uncertain.

“I mean it,” Sam says. “You mattered then. You matter now.”

Bucky shifts, wincing slightly as the movement pulls at something in his side. “It’s just… hard to believe that. When I feel like half of me is still wired for destruction.”

“You’re not a weapon anymore,” Sam says. “You’re a person. And yeah, maybe you’re still cleaning up some of the wreckage—but that’s not weakness. That’s courage.”

Bucky lets that sit. It feels too big, too raw, to answer right away.

“I keep hearing it, Sam,” he admits after a beat, his voice low. “The Winter Soldier. It’s not just dreams—it’s like he’s waiting. Like if I let my guard down for even a second, I’ll wake up and realize I was never free. That all this—” he gestures vaguely around the hospital room, at his own battered body, “—was just some illusion.”

Sam takes that in. Doesn’t rush to respond. When he speaks, his voice is low and even. “You think if it talks to you, it means it owns you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Bucky asks, eyes flicking over.

“You ever think,” Sam says, “that maybe the reason it’s getting louder… is because you’re getting closer to shutting it out for good? You scare the hell out of that voice, Buck. Because it knows it’s losing.”

Bucky lets out a slow breath. That’s not something he’s considered before. That maybe the noise is the sound of something dying.

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Then let me believe it for you,” Sam says simply.

Bucky glances at him. There’s a lump in his throat that he doesn’t bother trying to swallow.

“Thanks,” he mutters.

Sam gives a small nod. “You’re not alone in this. Not anymore. That ends today. And I don’t know what I need to do yet, but I’m going to do better. I’ll be there. For Sarah, for the boys, and for you. I mean it, Buck.”

For a moment, neither of them says anything. The room feels heavier, but in a way that’s grounding rather than suffocating. Like they’ve anchored something real.

Bucky lets his eyes drift back to the magazine. The car on the cover is all sharp edges and bright polish, the kind of thing built for show, not substance. Not like his old Chevy, with its curved lines and charm.

“That thing looks like a spaceship,” he says, his voice dry.

Sam follows his gaze then chuckles. “Yeah, but I bet drives smoother than anything they built in the 1800’s.”

Bucky shoots Sam a glare. 

“I’m not that old Sam.”

Sam shrugs, but there’s a mischievous grin on his face.

“Could have fooled me.”

The silence after that is easier. Still quiet—but not so empty.

“Well—” Bucky shifts on the bed again. “Might have to reach out to the Wakandans again about this.” 

He lifts the sleeve of his hospital gown, revealing the slick, beady disk to Sam. 

“It must be Power Broker tech.” he summarizes, “but I think it’s been what’s keeping the serum from me all this time—”

“Oh right!” Sam says. He hutches over, digging in his pack then reappearing with a clamp-looking tool in his hand. “Sharon couldn’t make it over, but she said to give you this.”

Sam hands it to Bucky looking expectantly at him. Bucky lets the smooth metal glide into his fingers, frowning as he turns it over in his hands. It isn’t unlike a rivet gun, two handles and a pressure point where they meet. Except, where a rivet gun would have a puncturing head, this tool has a flat metal disc about the size of Bucky’s palm. 

“What is it?”

Sam does a good job hiding his disappointment. “You don’t know?”

“No Sam.” He grumbles back. “That’s why I asked what it is.”

Sam lets out an annoyed breath. 

“She said you would know what to do with it. But you don’t?” 

“No, I–” Bucky stops. The flat disc on the tool is roughly the same size as the device embedded in his arm. Could it be..?

“Hang on.” He grunts, grasping the tool in his left arm. Opening the clamp, Bucky positions the top of the clamp over the head of the device in his arm. He struggles to get the bottom part under the lip of it. 

“Here.” Sam stands, taking the clamp. “Let me get it.”

Bucky relents, then keeps the sleeve lifted for his friend. Sam finesses it until Bucky feels it slide securely underneath the thing in his arm.

“Uh..do I just push down on this and it’s supposed to do something?” Sam asks. 

Bucky doesn’t answer as much as glower at Sam. 

“Right. Yeah. Okay, here goes.”

Sam grips the clamp and pushes down which puts pressure on the device. Bucky inadvertently sucks in a nervous breath, bracing himself for the electric cackle to strum up. Sam pushes down and then there’s a loud POP . A small stinging sensation pricks in his arm, but then Bucky sees the black device fling away from his arm like a cap off a bottle of champagne. 

And then it hits. 

There’s a roar in his ears that blocks out everything else. A jolt of heat floods through his chest, crawling up his spine and out to his fingertips. His muscles seize, then release. Every cell feels too awake, like pins and needles under the skin.

He grips the edge of the bed, breath caught in his throat. For one terrifying moment, his vision goes completely black and he thinks he’s either going to pass out or just die, but then the sensation settles down, his vision returns, and all Bucky feels is normal. His own special brand of normal. 

He blinks. Twice. 

“Hey.” Sam is speaking loudly. His arm is gripping Bucky’s shoulder. “You good?”

His tone indicates this isn’t the first time he asked. 

“Yeah.” Bucky says, more confident sounding than he feels. His ears ring in the room. It seems almost silent comparatively yet ticking with every little sound, like insects are crawling over everything.

“I think that was just the serum. It’s back. I’m back to normal.”

Sam scoffs. 

“Yeah, okay. Half made of medal, high on illegal substances. Normal.”

Bucky winces out a smile then instinctively prods at his gunshot wound. It still hurts like hell, but a light itch around the edges of the skin manifests the immediacy of the serum. It’s already trying to restore his body and make him whole.

His fountain of youth. His poison. 

“Why did Sharon have that?” Bucky wonders, absently rubbing at his arm where the device was. 

Sam scoffs. “Hell if I know. She always has something for every situation.”

“Yeah.” Bucky says without agreeing.

Sam nods, glancing at him.

“But it is weird though, right?” He asks.

“Definitely.” Bucky replies. “I’m afraid to find out what else she might be hiding up her sleeve.”

“You and me both brother.”

The words settle between them, not heavy, just true.

Bucky exhales, letting his shoulders drop a fraction. The worst of the pain has dulled, replaced by a lingering ache and that faint hum of the serum working beneath his skin. He hates it. He needs it. It's complicated. But right now, he's still here.

“Guess I owe you one,” Bucky says.

Sam leans back in the chair with a tired smile. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

They fall into a familiar kind of silence. Not awkward—just lived-in. Like they’ve both finally stopped bracing for the next hit.

Bucky closes his eyes for a second. “I’m glad it was you.”

Sam looks over. “What?”

“Here. With me. I’m glad it was you.”

Sam doesn’t say anything for a moment, then pats Bucky’s leg—gently, avoiding the wound.

“Me too.”

And that, for now, is enough.

____________________________________

Sharon Carter

Sharon sits alone in a glass-walled office, sunlight bleeding through the blinds in sharp white stripes. Now that Sam—and Bucky—are finally away, she can focus on the important things. 

Like why the hell her men turned on her. 

Her fingers tap rapidly over her phone, scanning through emails, texts, and voicemail calls. One makes her pause. She clicks it, letting the recording fill the room. 

“Hey, you need to answer.” The nervous voice of one of the brothers fills her ears. “The tests didn’t work. You got bad intel. He’s not Winter Soldier anymore. What do you want us to do?”

Sharon listens, face completely devoid of emotion. 

“We’ve got Captain America on our tail. Please tell me you’ve got something planned or we’re fucked. You owe us this after our help with—”

She exhales and presses her thumb against the screen, stopping the playback. Wordlessly, she closes the file marked Project Helix and tucks it into a hidden panel behind a bookshelf.

Then, with a practiced calm, she picks up her tablet and moves on to the next item on her agenda.