Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bucky wakes up to the sound of his phone chiming with a text. He groans and rolls over, his only arm scrabbling blindly in the darkness until he finds it, tilting his face up just enough to see the name of the sender before flopping back face first into his pillow.

Becca: Hey Bucky, just wondering how you're doing; mom misses y...

The edges of the curtains are lined with bright sunlight, which means he slept in late again. His sisters message filters in along with his belated awareness of the morning, followed by a deluge of guilt.

Fuck. Shit. Why's Becca still trying? He thought she'd given up months ago. He thought he'd finally shaken them all off.

The raw, unhealed wound in the center of his chest squirms uncomfortably before Bucky shuts the feeling off in a well-practiced move. With a sigh he sits up in the dark and his feet find the cold floor. Well, he's up now. Might as well start the day.

He totters unsteadily to the bathroom, the empty left side where his arm used to be unbalancing him first thing as usual, and then stumbles to the kitchen to make coffee.

Everything is harder with one hand, some things now impossible, but the kitchen at least is mostly altered to accommodate it now, and he shakes his coffee grounds into the pour over filter with ease.

Bucky has no particular plans today, just as he's had no plans for the last eleven months or so since he got back from -

(Men in white labcoats standing around him; "run the test again.")

- since he got back. But that doesn't mean he's doing nothing. Dynasties, the club Bucky goes to a few blocks from his apartment will be open tonight, and he knows without looking that his cash is getting low.

After filling the largest mug he owns full of coffee he takes a pack of smokes out onto the fire escape and finally pulls out his phone to check the time. Three twenty one in the afternoon. He leaves Beccas text unopened, and checks a few other apps instead.

Nothing new on Grindr, but he wasn't expecting there to be; someone has replied to one of his Leo List ads though, and Bucky texts them to arrange a meeting at Dynasties at six tonight.

Back inside the kitchen he rips open a packet of instant oatmeal with his teeth and uses the rest of the hot water on the stove to rehydrate it, shoveling it in robotically; he needs the calories, but enjoyable meals are a thing of the past. Bucky tells himself it's because of the arm, but in truth he just can't bring himself to care. He eats one packet, knowing he needs more, but also knowing he only has two and a half hours to digest it before he's probably going to have a dick down his throat and he's not interested in risking throwing anything back up. His gag reflex is weak; so sue him.

All that's left to do after that is shower, and Bucky steps into the shower stall after doing a quick and likely entirely unnecessary security sweep of the little apartment, double checking the locks on the doors and flipping the mechanical stop lock he installed on the bathroom door without his landlords permission.

The only good thing about missing an arm is that it gives him slightly more room to maneuver inside the tiny shower unit, Bucky muses wryly. Still, washing himself is always difficult, at least moreso than it was before -

(He looks down his arm to where the IV drip is taped in place above the restraints and the skin around it is blackish purple - )

- just before.

When he's finished with the rest of his routine, he combs the conditioner from his wet hair and sluices water over the area of his back he can't reach, hoping most of the excess product rinses off and shuts the water off when he's done, his right arm aching faintly with exertion. It's always a little achy these days, along with the stump on the other side, and his shoulders and back where he compensates for the weight imbalance. Bucky blocks it all out and towels off awkwardly, standing in the damp bathroom on an old towel that serves as the shower mat.

He finds a pair of boxers that he's pretty sure are clean, along with a pair of ripped black jeans that are definitely not and tugs them on; next is the prosthetic which he hates, but it helps strange eyes pass over him without a second glance and makes a better first impression, he's found. So he straps the damn unwieldy thing in place using the harness that goes diagonal across his chest to the other shoulder and another one which cinches under his armpits like a really high belt and yanks a dark green undershirt on overtop.

Last to go on are the leather boots he never unlaces, just jams his feet in while holding the backs open, and his black leather biker jacket, the one he has all his clients identify him by.

Bucky hangs his head upside down to sloppily style his hair with his fingers and checks himself over in the mirror. His eyes look sunken and dead, dark circles under them highlighting his chaotic sleep schedule, and his stubble is almost too long; he should have shaved, but Bucky doesn't think he has time. He would have liked to do up his hair in a bun to show off the silver studs in his earlobes, which do a lot to enhance the look, but that hairstyle is one of the aforementioned impossibilities now with just one hand.

Other than his eyes, Bucky decides he looks presentable enough. His hair will dry on the way, and in the dark light of the club his lack of proper sleep shouldn't even be too noticeable. He looks a bit rugged but still acceptable, ruggedly handsome hopefully, and most clients don't care so much about that after he's got his mouth on them anyway.

Bucky does one last sweep of his apartment before he leaves, double checking the window latches and making sure the curtains are all down, checking the place for bugs even though he knows there's none there, not unless someone snuck in to plant them in the twenty minutes it took him to shower, but the compulsion still grabs him.

He shuts the hall door to his apartment and uses two different keys to lock up, then heads down to street level and to the club.

--

Dynasties is already busy by the time Bucky arrives. He hangs around at the bar for a while, pretending to drink, and lets a couple people try to chat him up before they realize he's waiting for someone. By the time he has a nice social buzz going his new client texts him.

Client: here

Bucky: Hey ;) I'm at the bar in the black leather jacket with the red star on the back

Bucky waits with minimal jitters for a first time meeting, his nerves soothed by the familiarity of the club. Finally a man approaches him with a look of intent in his eyes similar to the other strangers who tried to chat him up earlier, only more sure of his chances, and Bucky knows this is him. He turns, smiling.

"Well aren't you easy on the eyes," he says warmly, glancing up and down the guy. He's honestly not bad looking, maybe mid 40s and white, vaguely italian, with a handsome olive toned face and curly hair receding a bit from a long forehead. He looks a little nervous, and he's not dressed for the venue at all; his pale blue dress shirt is buttoned almost all the way up and looks more suited to an office - but Bucky reads closeted, rich and (probably) not the violent type off of him right away, and he's more than pleased.

The guy smiles wanly in return. "I'm Richard," he says, and sticks a hand out for Bucky to shake, which he immediately does. Probably a lie, but Bucky isn't exactly giving out his real name here, either.

"Sasha. Nice to meet ya. Want to grab a drink and move to a booth?" It's his usual vetting process, a quick interview-style meet n' greet more often than not followed by a retreat to a more clandestine location of their mutual choosing.

"Sure!" Richard runs his hand through his hair, a nervous tell, and Bucky bites back a smile. Definitely easy.

By the time they've maneuvered back into a booth, he's changed tactics, deciding this guy could use a warm up before they talk business. Sometimes the nervous ones run out on him before they can really start, and Bucky doesn't want that here. Not only is the guy the perfect client - eager, shy, looks well off, easily manipulated - but Bucky stole a glance at his cash pool before he left the apartment and it was worse than he remembered.

He pulls Richard into the booth with his right arm, keeping the left on the far side for now, and with the protection of the high backed seating he catches Richards eye and makes his intentions obvious before leaning in.

The other man makes a small noise of surprise before gasping against Bucky's mouth and pressing in, and that's all he needs; the next minute or so is devoted to kissing the absolute daylights out of the guy, pressing softly slicked lips against his before sucking and tugging with teeth on Richard's lower lip.

Bucky winds his right hand up into the guys hair and Richard likewise reaches for Bucky's left shoulder; Bucky goes still for a moment while he lets the other man realize that something is odd; he pulls back just enough to look at the guys face, assessing whether or not it will be a problem. It shouldn't be; he tells his clients beforehand, but when they meet him with the prosthetic sometimes they forget and get startled all over again.

"Alright?" He checks with Richard, and the guy, bless him, just nods and continues to stare at Bucky's face. "It's a prosthetic," Bucky adds, just in case, and the guy nods again.

"You told me," he says easily, and just like that they go back to kissing. This time Bucky puts a little extra effort into it, feeling grateful and appreciative that people like him exist. This is always the hardest part, finding out if other people can accept him as he is now, and it's such a relief to find out that a lot of people can.

By the time Bucky retreats for tactical purposes Richards lips are nicely red and his eyes are a little wild; perfect.

"So," Bucky grins at the other man, "What are you interested in?"

--

He has Richard pay him upfront before they go to the alley behind the club, where Bucky blows him for all he's worth. The man can hardly walk straight when he's done, and they agree to meet again before Richard totters off, drunk on endorphins and giddy with what is probably one of his very first sexual encounters with another man.

Bucky is still standing in the alleyway recounting the bills Richard gave him when he hears footsteps approaching from the opposite direction his client just left in. Full body panic slams into him before Bucky even understands what's spooked him; he whirls around, cramming the cash into his jacket pocket, and sees a handful of shadowy silhouettes approaching.

Cursing himself for not bringing a weapon, Bucky thinks about running, but his back is to a corner between a wall and the dumpster he and Richard found to duck behind for privacy, and the strangers are rapidly closing in on his only escape route. When one of them steps a little closer Bucky recognizes him, and his panic dims just enough for him to regain a semblence of composure.

"Brock." He says the name with relief he shouldn't feel; Brock is - was - is? One of his clients; Bucky's been trying to shake him off like a dog with a tick in its ear for the better part of five months now, refusing to return messages or pick up calls, avoiding the other man wherever he sees him - but. But stupidly Bucky's still relieved, because of all the evil fuckers who could have stepped out of those shadows, at least he's met this evil fucker before. The devil you know, and all that.

"Bucky!" Brock returns jovially, "You look like shit." One of the men around him snickers, and the rest of the group steps into the dimly reflected streetlight: there are six of them, and Brock looks downright chipper, which means he's high. The panic starts to creep back in. "Feels like you've been avoiding me, pal."

Bucky weighs his odds and decides to go for lying.

"Been busy," he grunts shortly, not wanting to give his voice the opportunity to waver.

"I can see that. Think you could book in time for some eager clientele?" More laughter from the others, who are all able bodied and mostly tall and broad and as muscle bound as Brock. Fuck. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

The panic starts to take over fully now, so intense that Bucky can barely think; his heart is pounding, limbs shaky, and his breath is coming a bit short.

("One of our best test subjects, you can see for yourself how receptive he is to commands -")

Fuck.

Bucky takes a step back, forgetting he's blocked in. The back door to the club is a good twenty yards away, out of sight and easy hearing distance. There's no one else back here right now, either, not that he can hear or see.

Absurdly, the thing that's scaring Bucky the most right now is the knowledge that when he panics he gets short of breath, and if they make him give any of them a blow job while he's panicking - Bucky carefully avoids the other word for it - he's scared he will pass out.

Brock says something to the others, something irrelevant now that it's become clear what is about to happen either way, and then several of them are on him. Bucky swings at one of them, a man with dark brown hair even longer than his, tied back in a ponytail down his back, but a younger guy with a short blonde haircut and tattoos along his neck grabs Bucky's arms from behind. He can hear the grunt of surprise when one of the arms doesn't do what he expects.

Brock takes the opportunity to saunter up to Bucky and sock him hard in the jaw. "That's for ghosting me about twenty times when I tried to get ahold of you," Brock explains. He punches Bucky in the stomach and doesn't retreat this time, putting his head right next to Buckys ear. "And that's just 'cause I wanted to," he whispers into his ear, like it's a secret. Then he steps back, assessing, and addresses the kid holding Buckys arms.

"Get him on his knees. Take off his jacket. He's got a prosthetic arm on; makes him slippery'er than an eel until it's off."

That's completely true, something Brock learned from experience, and Bucky's stomach sinks even further than it did with the punch; that was his one card, waiting for the idiot youth behind him to get too comfortable with his hold on him before wriggling out of the harnesses beneath his shirt and ducking out of his grip.

Two more of Brocks goons join the kid in the struggle to get Bucky out of his jacket, which they toss to Brock. They rip his undershirt right off him, and finally the prosthetic. The kid behind him makes a disgusted sound as he throws it away from himself.

Bucky feels like he should say something, anything, but the air hitting his naked skin brings memories pouring in like water into a vacuum (struggling out of their hold for the hundredth or perhaps the thousandth time, he doesn't know where or who he is; a needle slides into his neck -) and the old instinct to submit, stay silent - comply, overwhelms, and to his own disgust Bucky obeys the imperative.

"I always liked this thing," Brock says conversationally, pulling Bucky's leather jacket onto himself. He walks over to the prosthetic lying on the ground and picks it up, examining it, and then without warning slams it against the side of the dumpster with an almighty CRACK, where it splits in half. "And I always hated that," he finishes, throwing the broken pieces to either side of the alleyway. "It's false advertising; people oughta know what they're buying is broke at time of purchase."

The words go down like sour milk, but Bucky feels nothing about the damn prosthetic; it's inconvenient, he might have to get another one someday; whatever. It's the jacket that's really pissing him off, though, and he struggles through the thick sludge of memories threatening to overwhelm him and reaches for the rage. It feels like swimming through mud to grab onto a thicket of thorns on a riverbank. But that's his stupid jacket, with the red star emblazoned on the back that everyone recognizes him by; it was one of the first purchases he ever made with his own money after he got back from that awful place, and it's - it's just his, goddammit. All at once the panic abates just enough for Bucky to know that he's about to do something really, really stupid.

"Give me my damn jacket back," Bucky spits from where he's kneeling on the ground - forced in place by no less than three of Brocks stupid goons - shirtless and armless (at least on the left side) behind a dumpster in Brooklyn with what's probably glass cutting up his kneecaps and his jaw and torso aching, and he doesn't give a shit about any of it.

"You're not in a position to be making demands," Brock informs him, eyes dancing with delight at this new defiance, and Bucky feels his gut flare with hate.

"Fuck you, Brock," he snarls. "Fuck you you fucking FUCK -" and with a howl he slams his head back into the kids face behind him, hears a crunch and a scream; he feels fists pummeling him from either side and he ducks and twists expertly out of their hold while they pummel him - if his captivity taught him anything it was how to slither out of a less-than-secure grip - and rolls along the filthy alleyway concrete, tripping one of them with his feet as he goes. He feels a body slam on top of him, all the air whooshing out of his lungs, and Bucky feels a hand come around his face toward his neck - bites - hears cursing and jeers and Brock laughing like a hyena and his own voice screaming or growling or something in between. They roll together, he and the other body plastered along his spine, wrapped around his legs, an arm locked around his neck. He knows he's gonna pass out soon if it keeps squeezing, and if that happens he's done for, like actually so fucked it isn't funny - but even as his future narrows to one horrible inevitability, all Bucky lets himself think about is how he doesn't want Brock Rumlow of all people to wind up with his favorite leather jacket -

"HEY!" There is another man's voice, booming and sharp, cutting through the fray, and Bucky's attackers pause; the alleyway gets quiet as they all turn to see the newcomer.

Bucky scrapes his face against the gravelly New York alley debris to turn his head to look; it's just one lone guy, but aside from his face which looks - too wholesome to be here, quite frankly - he is admittedly huge. He's freakishly tall with enormous gym-rat muscles, and he's glaring at all of them wearing what looks like brand new Puma sneakers and Tom Ford sweatpants and a baby blue t-shirt that's way too small for him, and all Bucky feels is dread on his behalf when the group laughs.

"This ain't your fight, pretty boy," Brock informs him mildly. "No need to get involved."

Instead of backing down New Guy seems to take Brocks words as some sort of personalized invitation to a woefully one sided street fight because he straightens his back and strides confidently forward.

"Let go of him," New Guy says clearly, his voice ringing with confidence and authority through the dirty alley, and Bucky would think he was absurdly stupid - does think so, for the record - except that there's something sort of shiny about him that seems to go so far beyond the normal gym-rat health glow that it verges into the Weird, so much so that even though Brock has a group of six, it still feels like maybe this guy could fight all of them and somehow come out on top. Maybe.

"Get outta here," Brock insists, annoyed now: "Unless you wanna join this sorry fuck in sucking our cocks when we're done with him."

New Guy's entire bearing shifts at this; he glances toward Bucky, who averts his eyes just in time - he doesn't need the judgement of an additional stranger on top of all this, okay? - and then New Guy steps forward again.

"I just decided it is my fight, actually," New Guy says lightly, but just beneath that tone is all menace. There's not a shred of doubt or fear in his blue eyes when Bucky chances to look back up, either. Huh. "And if you let him go and start walking away right now I might be very nice, and let you." He sounds like he believes himself, at any rate, which is really doing wonders for Bucky's confidence.

"I think you should fucking back off, alright?" Brock sounds kind of worried now. Brock never sounds worried; Bucky didn't even think the guy was capable of that emotion, the psychopath.

Bucky squirms in the hold of his captor, and finds his hold has loosened significantly. He butts his head back and is met with the soft landing of someone moving their face out of the way just in time.

"I think one of you should call the ambulance now and let them get a head start," New Guy says offhandedly to the rest of the group, before leaping toward Brock.

It takes all of about forty seconds and a lot of screaming before all six of them are on the ground with a chocolate variety box worth of injuries. Bucky's never seen anything like it. The guy moves like Neo from the fucking Matrix. At one point he backflips into a scissorkick that he brings down on one guy in a single, powerful stroke. Like it's nothing. Easy as cutting butter with a hot knife, that kind of thing. The guy lying over top of Bucky wisely moves away in the first display of freakishly talented ninja fighting moves, and Bucky scrambles to his hand and knees in his absence, trying to catch his breath for the first time since he got cornered as pandemonium continues to erupt around him.

His eyes follow Neo from the goddamn Matrix, drawn to him like a magnet because the way he's moving makes it feel like they're all in a dream, like this is some kind of simulation for this guy to practice taking out six fully grown muscle bound scoundrels in the back alleys of New York. Something in his posture strongly suggests he might actually holding back, is the most confounding bit.

When it's over, Bucky sits back on his heels and proceeds to give in to the panic attack that's been threatening to overwhelm him since this all started.

(Four of them holding him down as he thrashes, clawing at the door of his prison cell, at the floor of the long white hallway, the featureless wall, the attendants: scratching for a handhold or an inch of traction to pull against because he'll do anything, ANYTHING, before he goes back to the chair -

- there isn't time to sedate him when they finally come to check on him; by now it's almost his whole arm, the blackened flesh has been spreading for what feels like an eternity; he watched it the entire time, crying out in fear; they wheel him to medical and turn on the saw -

"After this latest incident he's proved he's no use to us here; send him to the trial floor -"

"Sergeant Barnes? Can you hear me? This is agent Coulson from SHIELD; can you hear me?-")

"Hey; can you hear me? Take it easy, pal; deep breaths, that's it; you're in an alley in Brooklyn. I think you're having a panic attack."

Reality trickles back in gradually, punctuated by a steady, deep voice Bucky doesn't recognize but is soothed by nonetheless.

He wants to snark back at it, no shit this is a panic attack, but he's barely crossing breathing off the checklist, so the snark will have to wait. But then the soothing voice says something about a hospital and doctors and Bucky slams back into the present like a truck hit him.

"No! No doctors! Please, please, no -"

And just like that he's not sure where he is - is he back there? Was that alleyway a dream? Oh god, please let it have been real, he can't take it if he's still back there -

"Woah woah; easy pal, easy, I didn't mean - okay, no doctors; it's alright -"

Bucky grabs the arm rubbing his back and tries to put whoever it's attached to on the ground in a flip, but the person is strong and they always did figure out how to stop all his tricks eventually -

He goes back to begging, squeezing his eyes shut because he can't bear to look and see if he's really back there.

"Please please please, no doctors, please; I'll do anything - "

"Hey. Hey! Open your eyes. Hey; look at me!" The command bypasses several filters - they were never very patient when he didn't comply immediately, and he learned, oh god did he ever learn -

He snaps open his eyes to a dark city street and blue eyes, a mans face looking down at him with concern, something like alarm, but he seems calm otherwise and not - he's not wearing a lab coat, or a military outfit of any kind; he's on his knees in front of Bucky, and Bucky still remembers his own name.

So he's not there. It was real and he got out and he's not there.

Bucky could kiss the alleyway ground, dirt and all. Might have, had there not been a handsome stranger sitting inches from his face and looking at Bucky like he was losing it. Which. To be fair, he might be.

But he's not there.

"You back with me, pal?" The stranger says, his eyes and voice full of concern, and Bucky nods, breathing hard. His entire body is shaking. The man - it's Matrix ninja, Bucky remembers now - reaches to steady him and Bucky flinches. The hands stop in their tracks.

"Hey. I'm not gonna hurt you," he says quietly. "It's just you don't look so hot at the moment, pal. Are you feeling okay? Can you stand?"

Bucky is - he's not fucking capable of forming words right now, is the thing. He's not sure what just happened or why and he's - goddammit he's shirtless in an alley and everything hurts and his empty left arm is on full display and he's never felt so vulnerable in his life, except that's not true at all because there was another - there was another time -

(writhing on the gurney, screaming at every tiny movement that jostles the bandaged stump of his arm but unable to stop -)

- and that's no good at all, he can't think about that any more; he may be a wreck and trembling like an aspen leaf but he's not going to keep going down that road right now, not if he can help it, so Bucky shakily forces himself to his feet as New Guy looks on warily.

It takes a couple of seconds to get his bearings, but then he staggers over to where Brock is laid out unconscious and leans down to pull the jacket off him. The jacket refuses to come without a few hard tugs and some clumsy maneuvering, but eventually he gets the damn thing off and then Bucky stands, jacket clutched in his right hand, and he stares down at Brock's limp form for a moment, looking for the reliable flame of rage he always feels inside him.

"This is MY fucking jacket," Bucky says, shaking it once, emphatically, over his unconscious body, and kicks Brock hard in the side before turning away and pulling it on.

Neo from the Matrix looks on with eyes that are bright with some emotion Bucky doesn't totally understand and follows him slowly as he stumbles away from the macabre little tableau of Brocks goons littered all over the alley.

--

Steve was out for a late run when he heard the noise that drew him to the fight.

He gets restless in the tower, and at night the city is cool and relatively quiet, perfect for runs if you're a nearly invincible supersoldier who's not interested in being hounded by the paparazzi in the daylight and can fend off any would-be muggers who try it with you at night.

So it's mere curiosity that slows Steve down at first; he hears a jarringly loud clang of what sounds like metal on metal, and voices - an unusual cadence, less friendly than most tones, not just the usual brand of New Yorker Rude but menacing, something Steve recognizes a little too well and it draws him in, feet slowing on the pavement and ears pricked like antennas tuned to a particular frequency.

"...Oughta know what they're buying is broke at time of purchase."

"Give me my damn jacket back," says another voice, and this one sounds angry, and scared, and desparate, and Steves feet speed up without his conscious choice.

"You're not in a position to be making demands," says the first voice, too confident, like he holds all the power and is reveling in it, and boy if that smug tone doesn't sound familiar - Steve runs through the remainder of the dark alley he's turned down and sees them just as he hears the last words:

"Fuck you, Brock. Fuck you you fucking FUCK - !"

The man cursing like a sailor is on his knees, two men to either side of him and one behind, holding him there. He's got long dark hair down to his shoulders and he's shirtless and - fuck - missing his left arm, and he's snarling at the group of six men around him even though it's clear he doesn't have a hope in hell of winning this fight.

Before Steve can do anything, the man with the missing arm snaps his head back into the face of the one holding him from behind and yells, twisting out of their collective grip in an impressive series of moves that would make Natasha proud, and then he's being tackled by a fourth man from the sidelines of the group and they're rolling around on the ground.

Steve steps into the dim ring of light. "HEY!" He shouts, using his full-chested Captain America voice, and the group freezes.

"This ain't your fight, pretty boy," their leader - Brock, from what Steve heard the other guy call him - says once he's looked over the source of the interruption. "No need to get involved."

"Let go of him," Steve orders, knowing they probably won't listen to him. He doesn't look much like Captain America right now, with his loose sweatpants and t-shirt and his hair probably sticking up in every direction from the wind. Plus most people just don't expect to see him around here, even if Steve did grow up in Brooklyn. He's found people generally expect him in the more expensive neighborhoods, which is why he likes to come here to run at night.

"Get outta here," Says Brock, annoyed and bored, like he's shoo-ing away a nosey border collie. "Unless you wanna join this sorry fuck in sucking our cocks when we're done with him."

Every instinct Steve ever had that already hates bullies shifts into red alert at the words; Steve glances at the guy pressed into the concrete. He's looking down and away at the concrete under his head. His expression looks resigned. Like this has happened before.

Steve straightens his shoulders and strides forward. Whether these guys know it or not, their night just irreversibly changed.

"I just decided it is my fight, actually," Steve says, and he's proud of how much restraint he has over his voice; it barely shakes with the violence trembling just beneath it. "And if you let him go and start walking away right now I might be very nice, and let you." Never let it be said that Captain America didn't allow for a diplomatic solution first. Nevermind if he still plans to hunt down Brock in particular and scare him outside wherever he lives.

"I think you should fucking back off, alright?" Says Brock, but his voice is less certain; his instincts are probably telling him something's not right, as they should.

"I think one of you should call the ambulance now and let them get a head start," Steve retorts, already uncaring whether they listen to his advice or not. He frankly kind of hopes they don't. And then he springs, a wildcat with its cage door thrown open.

He goes for Brock first: the grown up version of a playground bully, something Steve was all too familiar with in his days in Brooklyn, except this guy has more than a speck of real evil in him, and Steve doesn't hold back - much.

He punches Brock in the ribs, feels them snap like twigs - good; that'll be a couple months nasty recovery so he can ponder the events of this night at length - and hits him on the head for good measure. Give him a chance to wake up with a new personality.

The next two guys go down easy; they're not expecting what Steve can dish out yet, and he finds himself holding back as he executes a few routine moves he does at the gym with Nat and Sam most days that end in Y; for literal kicks and giggles he does a backward scissor kick on one of them, figuring he could use the practical experience. He makes it gentle so he doesn't kill the guy.

Goons four and five are a little more difficult, which is to say they take a few seconds longer to take out. They hung back because they're both smart, tactical, assessing their opponent first: fighters of a different class than the others in their group. One of them has a knife out, and the other's carrying; Steve snatches the gun from his hand and uses it to block the knife swinging towards him. He breaks the mans wrist and sweeps his feet out from under him. He lands heavily, his head bouncing off the pavement, out cold.

The first guy has recovered the loss of his weapon by grabbing something else from off the ground; when Steve registers what it is, he thinks he actually sees red.

It's half of a prosthetic. They took the guys fake arm off - and snapped it in half by the looks of it - and if that isn't just the cherry on this whole shit cake.

Steve whips the prosthetic out of his hands and knocks the guys lights out with it in a single, angry crunch.

The last guy tries to run off, but Steve catches him in a couple of breezy strides and puts him in a light sleeper hold, something a little less violent for the coward of the pack. Maybe when he wakes up this kid will make better life decisions. One can only hope.

Steve turns to the man with the one arm, ready to reassure him or call that ambulance, but his plans fall apart when he sees the guy on his knees hyperventilating, having some sort of serious panic attack.

Up close Steve can see his torso is littered with scars, more heavily concentrated near the amputated left arm. His shoulder length hair has gone wild in the fight, stray pieces falling around his jaw and into his eyes. Steve feels a twinge of shame for thinking he looks beautiful, but he does. Even with his long scruff and dark eye circles. His cold blue eyes are wide and distant, though, and there is a haunted look in them.

Steve approaches slowly, but the man doesn't seem to see him, which is not a good sign. He reaches for the mans shoulder carefully, and when that gets no response his hand moves to his back, trying to rub soothing circles and think of things he's heard Sam say to vets at the VA having flashbacks:

"Hey; can you hear me? Take it easy, pal; deep breaths, that's it; you're in an alley in Brooklyn. I think you're having a panic attack. You're safe now I promise. Just breathe."

The guy is pretty unresponsive, which is alarming, and Steve remembers Sam telling him about some cases where they needed to calm down some of the vets having flashbacks with medication. "I think maybe we might need to get you to a hospital," Steve tells him, still rubbing circles on the guys back and looking him over. His scarred torso is also littered with a plethora of fresh cuts and scrapes, along with his face, which is sporting a large and painful looking bruise along his jaw. Steve thinks he sees another bruise forming on his stomach. And that's just what Steve can see. "I think you should maybe have a doctor check you over anyh -"

"No! No doctors!" The guy interrupts, suddenly more lucid. But his eyes are wild, face ashen; "Please, please, no -" the word 'doctor' seems to have cut through the flashback in the worst way, and Steve feels horrible.

"Woah woah; easy pal, easy; I didn't mean to - okay; no doctors, it's alright -" There's a tug on Steves arm, the one that's been rubbing circles on the guys back, and it takes Steve a moment to realize that anyone else would have found themselves on their back right now as the guy tries to flip him in some kind of wrestling maneuver. Steve, being Steve, doesn't move, but he appreciates what the guy is trying to do and backs off. It doesn't seem to improve the situation much, because he instantly starts crying instead.

"Please please please, no doctors, please; I'll do anything -" The way he's pleading makes Steve think he's gone somewhere else again, maybe even worse than before, and Steve seriously hates it. The tone alone is nearly unbearable to listen to.

"Hey. Hey! Open your eyes. Look at me!" He uses his Captain voice again, and it seems to work - eerily well. The guy snaps his eyes open, and finally, finally seems to see Steve, starts to notice his surroundings for real this time.

"You back with me, pal?" He's shaking, and Steve can't help his hands from reaching out to try and steady him, but the man flinches and Steve stills. "Hey. I'm not gonna hurt you," he says quietly. "It's just you don't look so hot at the moment, pal. Are you feeling okay? Can you stand?"

Trembling, breathing hard, tears drying on his face, the man gets up on his own, and suddenly Steve is transported to 1938 so thoroughly - the hopeless odds, the fiery, useless anger, defiantly picking his way back onto his feet no matter what after yet another round with his bully-of-the-week - that he is rendered momentarily speechless. For a second he understands exactly what Peggy and Dr. Erskine saw in him; Steve thinks he hasn't seen anything so courageous this century.

The man stumbles over to the little gang leader, Brock, and takes a minute tugging the jacket off the prone figure. Steve doesn't interfere, understanding that the guy needs to do this for himself. He stares down at Brock for one long moment.

"This is MY fucking jacket," the man says, finally, gesturing with said leather, and kicks Brock in the side for good measure.

Steve struggles to contain the irrational swell of affection bubbling in his chest.

The guy staggers away from the scene just as sirens start to wail close by, and Steve finally notices the couple of bystanders hanging outside what, from the pulsing sound of modern electronic music spilling out into the night behind them, appears to be the back door of a nightclub.

The guy walks in their direction and passes them without a glance, and the couple watch him approach before going back to their phones, pretending they don't see. Steve follows, silent and subdued, taking up position at his elbow. One of the bystanders glances at Steve and does a double take, but Steve glares at him and the guy looks away sheepishly until they've passed out of sight.

They don't speak for several minutes.

"Thanks," the guy says eventually once they've walked several city blocks. He's not limping exactly, but he's moving carefully like it hurts to take every step. "You got a name or should I just call you Neo?"

"It's Steve," Steve says immediately, not understanding the reference but also not even considering giving out his fake alias. "Steve Rogers." He holds out a hand, and thankfully he's reached out his right hand so the guy can turn and take it. There's no recognition in his face even when he hears Steves' name. Brock and the others hadn't recognized him either; it seems to be Steves' lucky night for that.

"Bucky," the guy introduces himself with a grimace. "Listen... thanks for what you did back there; you probably saved my life, not gonna lie. But you don't have to escort me anywhere; I promise I'll be fine." Steve hesitates, knowing this is his cue but uncertain whether he should press. Bucky's phrased it like escorting him would be a huge imposition for Steve, when it is decidedly the opposite. Also five minutes ago he didn't seem to know where he was.

"You sure?" He says eventually, the silence stretching a little too long between Bucky's words and Steves'. He hears Bucky sigh, and scrambles to explain himself.

"It's just, I have a friend in the VA who would bite my head off if he heard I let someone having a flashback wander off into the night not five minutes after he came to. Not to even mention the fight." Bucky snorts.

"What fight? That was a massacre. I've never seen anything like it." Steve is silent, and Bucky doesn't press. He speaks again after a beat.

"You called it a flashback?"

"Yeah; at least that's what it sounded like you were having. That and a panic attack."

"No shit." They walk in companionable silence for a bit. "You seem to know a lot about it."

"I'm a vet. My friend Sam at the VA is, too."

"Huh," Bucky says again, sounding deeply contemplative. "Well that explains some of the...ass kicking I guess. Not all of it, but some of."

"Yeah," Steve agrees mildly, very neutral. He's not exactly hiding that he's Captain America from Bucky, but he doesn't seem to have been recognized yet and that feels...nice. Nice enough not to burst the bubble of just yet, not until he doesn't have to. Then another thought pops into his head.

"You serve?"

Bucky hesitates before nodding, one short sharp bob of his head, and Steve is struck anew with horror. Bad enough they were picking on this guy six to one - an amputee, someone pretty much incapable of defending himself properly even if he weren't hopelessly outmatched - but a vet, too? Steve lets the curse tumble from his lips, and is once again surprised when his companion doesn't comment on it. He's not used to being anyone other than clean-cut, all-around golden boy Captain America to other people these days. Only the other Avengers don't bat an eye when he curses.

Steve is just thinking about how to phrase an invitation to the VA when Bucky slows down and sways, and Steve catches his shoulder gently with a "woah" before the other man sways exaggeratedly away from him and nearly careens into a streetlight.

"Shit."

Steve hears the curse and abruptly sobers. "God; I'm so sorry, I should have thought - d'you want me to call a cab?" He offers a bit desparately, but Bucky's already shaking his head.

"We're almost there," he says, and a dark look crosses his face, but then it's gone. They walk for a few more minutes, until finally Bucky stops in front of a dilapidated brick apartment building that's seen better days; Steve could almost swear when he looks straight up it's leaning a little like the tower of Pisa. The other buildings on the block are not doing much better. "Here." Bucky wavers momentarily on the doorstep, seeming to steel himself, then shrugs and gestures at the front door with his head.

"Want to come inside?" He says, and Steve looks at him in surprise.

"Sure!" He says, because he would honestly like nothing more than to make sure that this man is thoroughly okay - his post-mission ritual of checking his team over for injuries is kicking in hard - but this man is a total stranger, and Steve had not expected him to want someone else in his space so soon after what just happened. He follows Bucky gratefully inside the drafty building.

They wind up several flights of creaky stairs that smell of some cloying rubber chemical and smoke and ambient hall carpet until they reach a narrow hallway through a landing and Bucky stops in front of a brown door with two separate locks on it. He pulls out a set of keys - from the same leather jacket his tormentors had attempted to steal from him, Steve notes with another dull pulse of retroactive anger - and unlocks them, leading Steve inside.

"Sorry it's kind of a dump in here," Bucky calls over his shoulder.

The smell hits Steve first; it's a familiar oily musk which tells him what they'll find when the lights come on, and over that is the heavy mixture of old food and cigarette smoke and unwashed laundry. It's dark in the little apartment, curtains pulled tight across all the windows, and it takes a second for even Steves' enhanced eyesight to adjust.

He sees the outline of dirty clothes all over the floor and dishes covering every available surface, a couch and a coffee table squished together in the main room. Steve picks carefully across it after Bucky, who's headed for an invisible lightswitch. When Bucky flips it on, the effect is not much better. Sure enough, Steve sees a few cockroaches scurry away from the light and suppresses a shudder. As a New Yorker he's used to them, but he hasn't seen any since he woke up from the ice, and they're never a good sign. His instinctive desire to immediately start deep cleaning the place and setting out boric acid is as automatic as it is oddly comforting. Bucky doesn't seem to notice; he trips over to the small bathroom and grabs by the sound of it a pill bottle, and curses trying to open it. He has the thing jammed between his thighs when Steve approaches, trying to twist off the child safety cap one handed, and Steve gently reaches out.

"Let me," he murmurs, and shakes two tylenol into Buckys open palm when it's handed over.

"Thanks," the other man grunts, and goes to swallow them dry. Steve hurries to the kitchen and opens the cupboards, finds a cup that looks reasonably clean and fills it with water, passing it over when he comes back, and Bucky takes it gratefully.

"You got a first aid kit? I'm no medic, but I know my way around bruises and scrapes," Steve offers. Bucky shrugs, not looking at him, and indicates the bathroom with a tilt of his head.

"Under the sink," he mutters, and Steve goes to find it despite the lack of enthusiasm for the idea.

He comes back with the first aid kit and finds Bucky sitting in the bedroom on his bed, upright and staring vacantly at the wall.

"Okay," Steve says, just to announce his presence in case it hasn't been noticed yet, "Looks like you've got some good supplies here, so this shouldn't take too long." He kneels gingerly next to the bed and lays out what he thinks he'll need, some arnica gel for the bruises and some prepackaged antiseptic wipes. The kit is surprisingly well stocked, and it makes Steve wonder again how similar they are.

Bucky finally glances down at Steve once the supplies are laid out, curious and wary. Steve holds up an antiseptic wipe as silent explanation, and the other man nods his assent. There is a minute or so of quiet as Steve wipes at the shallow cuts on his face and palm from the gritty New York pavement, but then he pauses, unsure.

"You want me to get the ones on your back, too?" He asks, and Bucky stares at him uncomprehending for a moment, before quickly spurring into motion, almost violently shoving off the leather jacket that has served as the only barrier between his bare skin and the night air on their way home.

Steve moves extra gently as he dabs at Bucky's back and then his chest, then grabs the bottle of arnica gel and swipes some over his stomach after palpating it gently to check for internal bleeding. He swipes some more over a couple fist-shaped bruises on his sides, and then the huge bruise on Bucky's jaw, already bigger and darker than it was half an hour ago, and for a moment the silence takes on a serene quality, like neither of them are thinking anything and it's just...nice. Steve blinks in surprise. He hasn't felt whatever this is in...well, he's not sure.

When he finally retreats it's with no small degree of reluctance.

"Anything I missed?" He asks quietly, and Bucky hesitates, seeming to come to a decision, and then startling Steve, with the same abruptness he took off his jacket with, he scrambles to remove his jeans. Once he's kicked them off, without looking at Steve, craning his neck up and away to the side, he says tonelessly:

"My knees."

Steve looks and, yeah: he sees they're cut up pretty bad, glass or something having pierced through even the hardy material of the jeans, but he doesn't understand the shift in tone and he's hesitant to help. It also feels weird how naked Bucky is now, in his bedroom with Steve, a virtual stranger, and Steve can't see how this is comfortable for him at all. It doesn't seem comfortable. The air between them is tense. He'll just be as quick as possible and get out of here. Steve clears his throat.

"Okay," he says, and then proceeds to swipe at the cuts on Bucky's knees. There is a small reprieve where things seem less awkward, and then he's done, and Bucky twitches.

"You can fuck me if y'want," he mumbles, and Steve freezes.

"What?" He says, wishing he could have misheard. He knows men do this pretty casually in this century, but this seems...this seems like more than just a casual offer. Sure enough, Bucky grimaces down at the bed before glancing at Steve, looking sheepish. It doesn't suit him.

"I can't repay you right now," he explains. "But if you want...I dunno; I also give great blow jobs, if that's more your thing."

And dammit all, Steve is going to hell, because his cock does twitch with interest inside his jeans, but that's just because it's been a literal age since he's had sex and Bucky's attractive, Steve has eyes and yeah he's noticed, but this isn't the right moment for that at all.

Especially because Bucky is breaking his heart right now.

"That's alright, pal," Steve says mildly, careful not to hurt his ego. "You just rest, okay? I'll get outta your hair and you can have this place to yourself again." He wants to add something, something encouraging or comforting but he doesn't know what, all he can think of is 'tomorrow's a brand new day' and that sounds unbelievably cheesy even to him, so instead he gathers the contents of the first aid kit back into the bag and stands up, resting a few fingers on Bucky's knee briefly in what he hopes is reassurance, and then he backs away, heading to the bathroom to put the kit back and hide the grief in his heart. Everything about this man just makes Steve want to make something better, and he doesn't even know what.

As he's heading to the door he sees Bucky leaning against the frame of his bedroom doorway. He's back in his jeans and a new shirt, hand tucked into the front pocket of his jeans, and he's looking down at the floor, but Steve can tell he wants to say something, and he waits with his hand on the doorknob.

"Thanks again," Bucky says gruffly, and he looks up, a splash of blue-grey the color of a storm. "You saved my goddamn life tonight, so: I owe you. And sorry. For. You know. The offer." He hunches his shoulders, head tilting towards his missing arm like he's apologizing for it, like he thinks THAT'S why Steve turned him down. He tries to smile like he's making a joke about himself but all it does is serve to look sad.

Bucky seems to realize this midway through and the smile freezes; his shoulders hunch and his demeanor goes from would-be sardonic to freefalling shame, and suddenly Steve can't stand it. He turns away from the door, sees surprise and wariness flicker over Bucky's face as he crosses the room, but Steve doesn't stop until he's standing right in front of him.

Bucky's eyes widen, but there's no resistance as Steve searches them and then leans in to kiss him.

He pours everything into the kiss: the terrible longing and strange grief he feels around this man, the almost physical need to do-something-don't-know-what he inspires, the hunger and even some of his own aching loneliness; all of it comes rushing out, raw and unfiltered, a little too honest and desparate.

Bucky's eyes are wide when Steve pulls back; he searches Steve's face with a stunned expression. After a moment a hand reaches behind Steves' head and pulls him back in.

Bucky catches his lips with none of the intensity of Steves' kiss; instead it's sweet, almost hesitant, and painfully tender. He licks lightly along Steves' lower lip, considering, and then presses long and slow against him, reassuring as it is tentative. It puts out all the fires of uncertainty Steve had burning inside him and wraps him in a sense of comfort; Steve leans in like a man starved, devouring whatever Bucky's willing to give him. When it's over they both retreat an inch, breathing hard into the wild air between them.

Overwhelmed, Steve feels his eyes start to water and blinks it away. He doesn't know what's happening; he hasn't felt close to anyone since he woke up from the ice, and he'd gotten so used to it that he almost forgot what it was like until just now, and it's hitting him rather harder than he expected.

"I should go," Steve rasps suddenly, his voice unrecognizable to himself. "But it's not 'cause I don't want you." Steve, hand-to-god doesn’t know where this is coming from; as far as he knew until tonight, he was straight, but it's become abundantly clear that he isn't, and suddenly he needs to retreat so he can go have a meltdown about it far away from here. "And you don't owe me anything. Okay?" He pulls back to look at Bucky's face; he's looking at Steve a bit like Steve just told him unicorns are real, but he nods slowly after a beat. 

Steve turns around and finds what he's looking for in the mess of papers stacked precariously on the coffee table behind him: a pen, and something to write on. He writes his personal cell number (Natasha will shoot him for it later before getting him a new one, he thinks) on a takeout menu, and then after a moment of thought he writes down the number for the VA as well and hands it to Bucky.

"That's my number, and that's the VA I go to. My friend Sam Wilson works there; you should check it out sometime." Bucky takes the paper, something soft in his expression.

"Thank you," he says once again, but for the first time it's without all the heaviness of a percieved debt behind it.

"Stay safe Bucky," Steve says before he can linger any longer and turns to let himself out. 

--

Bucky waits a whole half hour after Steve is gone to move again. Before that he sits on the sofa, willing his brain to make any kind of sense of the night he's just had.

He went and saw a client - understandable; normal night for him; the money's thankfully safe in his pocket when he double and triple checks. Then he got cornered by Brock and his pals: extremely fucking bad luck, but not inconceivable. Brock's been hounding Bucky for months, and they were probably overdue for a confrontation. Had he woken up at all after, Bucky could have probably dealt with the aftermath of whatever Brock and his goons dished out tonight - sure, with a couple of broken bones and a sore everything, but he would have slept it off in a month and everything would have gone back to normal. He's had worse.

But then Steve happened. And Steve -

He -

- jumped into the fight -

- ended the fight?? -

- saved Bucky, just like that, swooped in like an avenging angel and -

Walked him home.

Tended his wounds.

Kissed him senseless.

...And left.

Just like that.

....Incomprehensible.

Nobody does that. Not the first thing, or the second or third or fourth and definitely not the fifth (and he left his number) and Bucky...doesn't know what to do with himself.

He'd meant to let Steve fuck him; from the moment it appeared he had a very overpowered clinger-on left over from the confrontation with Brock and his pals, someone who Bucky had no hope of fighting off and who clearly wanted to follow him, who Bucky owed anyhow, he had made the decision to not put up any resistance and let the guy do whatever he wanted with him. Even if it meant bringing him back to his place and showing the guy where he lived, which Bucky acknowledged to himself was a stupid move but he also likely owed the guy his life. Letting him fuck Bucky into the mattress was the least he could do, really. If it hadn't been for Steve he would have gotten fucked plenty more times tonight than that and none of them would have been his idea. So yeah, it was whatever. A little something to keep the guy happy, thank him, even the score a bit so Bucky didn't have a debt hanging over him.

But then.

Steve declined - very gently and kindly, too, that had not escaped Bucky's notice - and then kissed him stupid and now Bucky has a whole new problem, which is that he actually, genuinely likes the guy.

Which is not something he can afford to do.

If there is one thing Bucky is not allowed to do in this weird afterlife he has somehow been granted, it is catch feelings for someone. No one deserves that. Bucky is not relationship material; hell, he's barely human material.

But the way Steve had kissed him, the sharp longing in it, the wild look in his eye when they parted that Bucky recognized down to his soul, plays on repeat in his messed up head anyway.

Bucky finally gets up from the sagging sofa in the middle of his living room-slash-foyer and stumbles to his bedroom, pulling off his hastily thrown on clothes and sinking gratefully into his bed after the events of the evening. He puts the takeaway menu with Steves' number on it very carefully on top of the trash littered all over his bedside table - a place of honor, for now - and then just as carefully doesn't look at it.

The adrenaline crash from the night is nearly catching up, a wall of weariness a hundred feet high marching inexorably in Bucky's direction; he knows he'll be passed out for at least the next ten hours once it hits, but in the meantime he stares up at the ceiling and tries to comprehend the incomprehensible. He's still there when his eyelids start to close without his permission, and Bucky falls asleep with his whole reality still tailspinning into the unknown.

Because horrible things are possible and normal, but everything about Steve Rogers is not.

Chapter Text

Steve is having a crisis.

He's not totally certain what kind of crisis it is but he knows that it is one when he gets back to the tower and skips anything in his usual post-run routine - shower, go to the gym, wander into the common area and make himself a late night snack - and goes straight to his floor to draw from perfect memory a series of sketches: Bucky snarling at Brock with his hand pinned behind his back, Bucky kneeling on the concrete in a daze after the fight, his eyes fixed on something no one else could see; Bucky's face before and after Steve had kissed him - and then he starts googling panic attacks and sexual orientations until seven in the morning.

Steve only stops when he hears a knock on his door and opens it to find Tony Stark standing on the other side, looking even more tired than Steve is but also giving Steve a hard, knowing look.

"Stop spying on my internet history," Steve snarls with no preamble. Tony holds up a finger.

"In my defense, I only look if JARVIS alerts me to something that might jeopardize the safety of anyone on the team. Well; everyone except Natasha, because all of her searches are terrifying."

"I'm safe, Tony."

"You were googling panic attacks for three hours, which is offensive because JARVIS is much better than google."

"I was trying to be discreet."

"About the panic attack thing or the sexuality thing?"

"BOTH!"

"Alright, alright!" He holds up his hands. "I'm sorry: how about that? I thought you were maybe not okay. Are you okay? D'you need someone to talk to about it?"

"Not you," Steve says pointedly, and Tony throws both hands up again and backs away.

"Okay! Sorry! Next time JARVIS finds you googling noose knots or something I'll tell him to mind his business."

"You do that," Steve says coldly, and shuts the door, then sighs and opens it again. "Thanks for caring, Tony. But seriously, stop looking at my search history."

"You got it, Cap!" Tony calls, already walking away. "And get some sleep!" He adds hypocritically.

When Steve turns back to his suite, his eight hour hyperfixation marathon thoroughly interrupted, he looks at the time and decides to call Sam.

--

"So you saved this guy from this awful situation, walked him home and then kissed him," Sam says levelly, surprisingly calm about the whole thing. They are drinking coffee and eating sandwiches outside the cafe where Sam goes for his lunch break near the VA.

"Basically," Steve says, mirroring Sam's calm. Borrowing it, more like.

"So what's got you spooked? Why'd you come running all the way over here?"

"Who says I'm spooked? Maybe I'm just catching up with my friend."

"Steven," Sam says, almost pitying, staring at Steve's undereyes, "You called me at seven thirty in the morning after you clearly hadn't slept all night and asked to meet me 'as soon as you're available'" - here Sam does a ridiculous exaggeration of Steve's serious tone - "Like I'm the president, about something that happened last night. And usually it takes sixty business days for you to admit to having one inconvenient feeling." Steve's shoulders sag. Sam Wilson is vicious when he puts his mind to it.

"Thirty business days," he protests weakly.

"Forty-five, minimum," Sam counters seriously, but there's a gleam of laughter in his eyes. "Now spill."

Steve sighs. Where to start? "Everything made sense until I kissed him," he tries cautiously.

"Okay." Sam shifts immediately into Supportive Friend Who Also Happens To Be a Counsellor Mode, and Steve thinks offhandedly about how much he fucking loves him. And owes him a pie. "What about kissing him didn't make sense?"

"It was just so impulsive; I don't do that kind of thing! I mean, jeez; he had just offered me sexual favours and then I kiss him? Talk about sending mixed messages!"

Sam shrugs and shakes his shoulders at the same time, in the middle of a bite. Steve waits for him to chew.

"Did he seem confused after?"

Steve thinks about it. Sees Bucky's wide eyes in his eidetic memory, the same expression he went home and drew. They hadn't been confused or troubled or clouded with the sense of debt he'd had earlier; he'd looked like he understood what Steve had meant by the kiss, like he'd clearly heard everything Steve had intended to say with it. He'd looked shocked. And rightly so; Steve wouldn't have put so much into it if he'd been thinking clearer, but his heart had raced ahead of him as usual, and it never did anything by half measures. Even Steve was shocked by the speed at which Bucky had gone from stranger to someone he cared about. "No. It seemed like it... cleared things up, actually, if anything," he admits. Sam's eyebrows raise, and Steve finds that he's blushing.

"Steve," Sam says, divining something deeper from Steve's blush, "Have you ever kissed a man before?"

Steve feels the muscle in his jaw twitch as he clenches it. "No," he replies, begrudging.

Sam's face gentles. "And have you ever wanted to? Did you know you wanted to before last night?"

"No," Steve says again, and this time there's a bewildered note to it.

"So it was really impulsive," Sam concludes for himself with surprise. "And are you regretting it now? Getting a case of the ol' Catholic guilts?"

"I don't know." He stews for a minute, thinking, and Sam lets him, biting serenely into his sandwich while he waits, unperturbed. "I've only ever felt that way once before, and it was with Peggy," Steve says slowly, like he's trying to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit in his head with a finnicky thermometer. "I always thought because of that that I was straight. But I guess I'm not."

"It's okay to experiment and decide it's not for you."

"It was definitely for me," Steve says darkly, and Sam huffs with laughter.

"Okay; cool your jets, I can practically see the steam coming outta your ears. We're gonna figure this out." Sam leans back from his sandwich, assessing him.

"So your problem is, you've only ever felt attracted to women, but then suddenly last night you found yourself attracted to a man for the first time - after saving him from a gnarly situation - and you're worried you rushed in and maybe jeopardized it because you didn't know what you were doing and it took you by surprise," Sam summarizes, and Steve listens and dips his head to the side.

"Close. I um. I think Peggy might be the only person I've ever been attracted to, before this."

"Oh," Sam says, understanding lighting in his eyes. "Oh. Seriously?"

"I'd forgotten what it felt like," Steve admits quietly. "I thought maybe I was just... broken or something."

"Steve." It's kind, not pitying.

Steve swallows and continues doggedly, determined to get it all out now that they're here: "For a long time that was what I believed, until I met her. That I was broken. And then I thought she must have just been, y'know - that she was it for me. The one. After the ice I haven't... no one could hold my attention like Peggy used to, so I figured it must have been true. But then last night I... felt it again." The heady mixture of bewildered awe, painful attraction and lust mingled with the unresolved grief and aching loneliness hits Steve all over again as he tries to articulate it. He wonders if this is a bit like what getting punched in the chest by the Hulk might feel like.

Sam takes a long sip of his latte before setting it down delicately. "Well aside from probably being bisexual, it kinda sounds like you might also be demisexual dude," he says carefully.

"That was one of the ones I read about online," Steve agrees.

"Did it sound like you?"

"Yep."

Sam eyes Steve critically. "You already knew this," he guesses, and Steve looks down, caught out.

"I - yeah. I guess I just wanted... someone else to tell me it was real?" He says in an uncharacteristically small voice. He glances up at Sam. "It is real, right?"

"Demisexuality?"

"Yeah."

"Steve, of course it's real. Lots of people are demisexual; so many they went and made a word for it," he teases lightly.

"And I'm not broken."

"And you're not broken." Sam's voice is sure and full of warmth, not a bit condescending, and Steve loves him so, so much.

"...Oh. Yeah, that's. Okay." Steve lets out all the air in his lungs in a rush, and feels his eyes prick with moisture again like they did last night as he gazes out from their little outdoor cafe table and onto the street. It occurs to him that this is the first time he's ever talked about this with anyone, and his mind flies back to his days in Brooklyn, lying in bed with his hands folded over his bony chest wondering what the hell was wrong with him and dreading ever finding out, only to sit here nearly eighty years later and talk about it casually with a friend over coffee for the first time and they're fine with it - all of it, including the part where Steve's oddness apparently extends to occasionally being attracted to men. Well, one man.

Sam gives him the grace of space to think and Steve gives Sams words time to settle in his body. it's a warm glow over frozen shores: he wasn't broken, all those years ago, and he isn't now, and he's not betraying Peggy by finding someone else who also feels like...it for him.

He's allowed to move on.

The thought stuns him, a freight train of joy and relief shattering what has hitherto been apathy and grief, and that's what finally shatters the last bit of reluctance in his heart.

"Is that all?" Sam prods encouragingly, probably noticing the turmoil under the deceptively still surface.

"It's just - I feel so - is it like this for everybody??" Steve explodes.

"Is what like what?"

"The intensity!" Steve exclaims, turning a few heads around them, and just narrowly resists slapping the little cafe table with an open palm for emphasis like he would in the reinforced tower. Sam's eyes widen fractionally but he tempers his surprise a half second later - a side effect of hanging out almost exclusively with superheroes and veterans, no doubt. "I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin," Steve mutters, and Sam's lips twitch.

"I don't know," he says slowly, "I can't speak for everybody, and maybe I especially can't speak for you cause it might be a superserum thing or whatever, but like...yeah. I think so, dude. Judging by about eighty percent of all pop music and a large chunk of human history, I think that's pretty often what it's like."

"That's crazy," Steve says flatly. "If it's like this for everybody even half of the time I don't understand how most people are sane."

"You're telling me," Sam grunts into his next bite of sandwich.

--

Two weeks go by after the Steve Incident™️ and Bucky mostly manages to forget about it; Steve was just a freakishly good guy with freakishly good fighting skills who happened to stumble into Bucky's mess of a life and do a good deed. It was probably statistically bound to happen: the universe balancing out a complex mathematical equation in a mysterious backroom somewhere. Mostly Bucky's just relieved that Steve could actually hold his own when it mattered and that he didn't come away with so much as a single scratch for daring to rub shoulders with Bucky's bad karma or whatever.

The takeaway menu with Steves' number on it gets slowly buried under a kleenex box and mint wrappers that should definitely get thrown out. Bucky's apartment continues to accrue filth and for the most part everything carries on the same, with one nearly invisible difference: the day after Brock Rumlow's little stunt in the alley, Bucky takes the money he got from Richard and heads straight to a gun shop and buys a small handgun that fits inside his waistband without being too visible. Then he heads home and spends the day locating and sharpening all his old knives, the ones he had collected in the beginning right after he got out. He hides them in strategic areas around the bed, bathroom, couch, and kitchen, where they can remain in easy reach no matter where he is in the apartment. Bucky never leaves without at least two knives and the gun on his person anymore, either.

He's fine, though.

Everything is totally normal.

Which is why it's business as usual when he ignores two new texts from Becca, a call from his mom, two emails from his extended family and a handful of messages across three different apps he never checks anyway over the course of the next fourteen days. It appears Becca is on a new mission to get a response from him and she's rallying the troops.

Bucky's never told anyone from his former life where he lives now, so thankfully he doesn't have them beating down his door. Mentally it's a whole different story, though. The calls and messages and emails and texts weigh on Bucky, they do. It's just that he can't answer any of them - for so many reasons.

The day SHIELD found Bucky hidden away in a cell on the 'research level' of one of their own facilities in DC, a few days after the Avengers intercepted Project Insight and revealed HYDRA's presence within SHIELD, Bucky had been extracted by a STRIKE team and sent to the hospital to be looked over by (actual) doctors. He learned then what he'd known for a long time without anyone having to explain it to him: there was no official record of his time kept by the organization that had held him as a prisoner and lab rat for their experimental 'medical' testing - HYDRA, apparently, they called themselves - and "Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," a fictional soldier with a fictional rank who joined the army at the same time as Bucky and who also went by Bucky's full government name, was 'killed in action' overseas seven years ago. Bucky's official existence had ended the moment he submitted for the experimental medical trial right out of boot camp, and by the time he'd unwittingly signed away his rights there was already a holding cell waiting for him in a HYDRA lab so they could keep him indefinitely and do whatever they wanted to him. Which was a lot. It was a lot of things, and Bucky doesn't even remember all of them.

When he was finally discovered and taken to the hospital which notified his family, Bucky could only tolerate their presence for a few days.

He remembers sitting in the hospital room in DC, looking out the window for the first time in - they told him it was seven years.

He'd been there seven years, and now the incredibly pedestrian view outside of his little hospital room with its sidewalk and patch of grass and trees and sky has moved Bucky to tears three times.

He is still staring outside from the bed, all hooked up to the monitors like an obedient lab rat despite the conspicuous lack of restraints, when his fucking family walks into the room.

To say the sight is jarring would be an understatement.

Part of Bucky had refused to believe that any of this - the supposed rescue, the so-called end of whatever hell he was in - was real. Up until that point he'd kind of figured it was a hallucination brought on by a new drug they were testing or a weird psychological experiment to break him down even further. They liked to do that kind of thing, and Bucky was almost used to it by then.

So when his mother and sisters crowd the open doorway, Bucky just stares uncomprehendingly.

"Bucky?" Winifred says, her usually confident voice small and weirdly tentative while his sisters Becca, Rosie and Maddie peer nervously around at him like he's a weird creature on display at the zoo. Rosie and Maddie, the twins, look almost nothing like he remembers, Bucky notes dimly; Becca is different too, though her dark chocolate brown hair and eyes are the same when he really looks -

"Bucky!" Becca, who seems to also have recognized him in turn, shrieks and catapults past their protesting mother to land on him with a hug; Bucky flinches; Becca's sobs are loud in his ear, overwhelming, and the whole front half of her body is draped over him. All Bucky wants in that moment is to get away, except it seems real, maybe not another experiment, and he forces himself not to shout and jerk out of Beccas grasp just like he does when the orderlies come to get him from his cell. He stiffens and focuses on quietly hyperventilating through it instead.

"You're alive! It's really you," Becca sobs, and Bucky tries to console her then, resting his hand in her hair, in no small part just to get the onslaught to stop; he's still reeling with the idea that maybe none of this was fake, that the STRIKE team that took him from his cell hadn't lied, that maybe he really is free.

When they discharge Bucky from the hospital a day later he goes home with his family. He spends three days wandering around the old house like a ghost, afraid to touch anything, glancing around for cameras and bugs in the corners of every room.

It's three days of emotional outbursts and painful family dinners and stilted, awkward conversations where his family tries very hard not to stare at his missing arm or ask too many questions about where he's been or what happened to him while obviously hoping for him to jump in and explain. The tension and grief mingling in the air is nearly unbearable; it finally finds an outlet at dinner the third day when, for the third night in a row, Bucky waits in anxious silence to be told to eat before picking up his fork and his mother snaps,

"For pity's sake, Bucky, you don't need to wait to be told to eat every time!" Bucky freezes, limbs locking up, unable to move or speak.

"Mom," Becca says in a reproachful tone; she is so much older, with more authority in her bearing. Married too, it turns out: she's visiting their mother just to see Bucky and so far her husband has not stopped by - probably a good thing. Rosie, who Bucky remembers as an unstoppable fountain of jokes and commentary, watches the exchange wide-eyed and silent. Maddie still anxiously copies everything Rosie does, though she keeps making furtive glances toward Bucky's missing left arm more than the others do, obviously brimming with suppressed curiosity. Their mother looks so old and stressed; there is grey in her hair and lines in her face that hadn't been there before. They have all changed so much, but none as much as Bucky.

"I did," Bucky interrupts, and everyone turns to look at him. "I did need to be told...every time," he tries to explain. It's a weak explanation; it doesn't include the part where he hasn't physically had to feed himself in probably half of those seven years, or how real food was a luxury he was only given as a very rare reward. The rest of the time they had fed him through a gastronasal tube - ever since he'd tried to starve himself and interrupted their tests on him for several weeks. He doesn't say any of that but their expressions are still horrified. Maddie and Rosie exchange a look loaded with something Bucky doesn't quite understand.

"Well," Winifred says, scrambling for a response, "You don't have to do that anymore." She says it like it's final, like she is the authority on the matter and has decided and so that will just be how it is from now on: he shouldn't need permission again. Bucky hunches over his food and says nothing after that, shoveling food into his mouth, untasting.

"Where were you?" Maddie breaks the tense silence, losing her battle with her curiosity at last.

"Maddie!" Winifred and Rosie both scold at the same time, but Bucky can see they're all listening with interest regardless, and he sets down his fork.

They asked a few times in the beginning, at the hospital, before Bucky had even known how to answer their questions, and well before he wanted to try.

"I was in DC for a long time," he tells Maddie as gently as he can. "And before that...Russia." He can practically hear his entire family holding their collective breaths.

"Why were you in Russia?" Maddie asks, unable to contain herself now that she's gotten started.

"Don't know," Bucky grunts shortly, picking his fork back up and using the excuse of food to hide his growing discomfort. He can feel Becca's gaze burning the side of his face.

"That's enough, Maddie," Winifred says authoritatively.

"How did you lose your arm?" This time it's Rosie, obviously egged on by her twins success. Honestly, Bucky's surprised it was Maddie and not Rosie that broke down first: before, Rosie was always the endless talker, but being a few minutes older than her twin she seems to be taking the role of Slightly Older Twin By Several Minutes seriously, and formed an identity around being the responsible one. It appears to be the only thing that was holding her back. It makes Bucky's heart ache to see the personality he once knew so well shining through, even if it's about this subject, and he wants to try to answer her question.

Bucky swallows dryly, unsure what to say. In truth, he doesn't know the exact answer. What was it they had put in him? Poison? Some kind of drug? He only knows it stung like a thousand wasp stings and turned his arm slowly purple from the point of injection, then black. He only knows his screaming was not what drew them to check on him.

"Lost it in an experiment," Bucky decides on simple. "Something went wrong."

"Did it fall off?"

"Rosie, that's enough!" Winifred jumps in again, trying to save him. "If the two of you can't control yourselves you can eat dinner in your room!"

"'S okay," Bucky says quietly, but loud enough for all of them to hear. You could hear a pin drop, the way they all freeze simultaneously, terrified to make the wrong move and also obviously desparate for answers. Bucky tries to think of it from their perspective: they lost him, thinking it was to war, to a circumstance they'd never truly know, and they'd tried to make peace with that and move on, only to find out that he was alive all that time after all. Now they were probably guiltily revising the last seven years in their heads, imaginations in overdrive. Unfortunately whatever worst case scenarios they can think of likely pale to reality. But they aren't wrong to wonder.

"It didn't fall off," Bucky answers Rosie heavily, "Someone cut it off. A surgeon," - let them imagine it was humane, that he didn't feel all of it - "They had to cut it off before whatever was wrong with it spread to the rest of me and killed me." Doesn't mention he sort of would rather be dead. It's irrelevant to the conversation. Bucky sees Rosie and Maddie's wide eyes, his mothers lips pressed into a hard, pale line, Becca's soft brown eyes sad and understanding, seeing too much.

"You should never have signed up," Winifred says bitterly, shattering whatever moment Bucky and the girls were in.

"Mom!" Becca nearly shouts.

For a second Bucky feels like his heart has stopped. How could she know - ? Then he realizes she means to the military.

He stabs his broccoli with unnecessary vehemence. "Yeah, well."

But Winifred's not finished. "I know you think you were doing what's right for your country, Bucky, and I'm proud of you for that, I am, but losing y -" she stops, and they all freeze, on the precipice of something terrible.

"You should never have signed up," she repeats in a tremulous whisper, and when Bucky looks up her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her own fork trembles where his mother - dignified, unshakable Winifred - is holding it above her plate, and his heart plummets. It feels like his entire soul goes with it. This is not the reunion Bucky had dreamed of having with them, when he did allow himself such impossible thoughts.

Because she's right, is the thing. Whatever cause Bucky originally signed up for, whatever the reason, it sure as hell wasn't worth it. The person who signed up to join the military doesn't exist anymore, and in his place is a bitter, disfigured, jaded scrapyard version of whoever that was. He doesn't believe in any of that crap anymore, kind of loathes the version of himself that did. Winifred isn't even talking about the other thing, the second secret papers he signed after he joined - but she doesn't have to.

The worst part is he has no one else to blame. Bucky walked into the slaughterhouse willingly, determined and cocksure and stupidly naive, and now everyone he loves has to deal with the damage.

And there's so much damage.

Bucky doesn't say anything after that, just ducks his head and goes back to dutifully shoveling food into his mouth, thinking about how there are no locks on the doors keeping him from leaving the house, no cameras watching his every move, nothing to physically contain him here.

The others let him shrink in on himself, but Becca seems to sense the direction of some of his thoughts and finds him in his room later that night.

"There are funds available for you through SHIELD," she explains earnestly, obviously trying help him find some solutions, "It was all in a packet they sent home with mom when they discharged you; SHIELD will pay for your disability fund and therapy, and there's a lump sum too. All you need to do is sign some papers. Here; I can go get them for you right now if you want," Becca says. At the words signing and papers, though, Bucky goes cold.

"That's alright, Bex," he says very gently, trying to show her how much he appreciates her efforts. "Maybe in the morning. Thank you for telling me, though."

"Of course, Bucky. You know we love you, right? And we're so glad you're here, that you're alright." Bucky lets the silence speak for itself. "You know what I meant," Becca groans. "That you're alive, alright? We're all so fucking happy you're alive."

"Love you too, Bex," Bucky rasps, and they hug goodnight even as he feels like he is two seconds away from shaking apart at the seams.

When she leaves the compulsion Bucky's been trying to beat back from the moment the STRIKE team extracted him from the labs finally overpowers him and he surrenders to its ferocious pull:

No cameras or bugs in the room or house. Property unsecured. No guards, restraints or tranquilizer guns on site: perhaps SHIELD has an agent or two stationed out on the street, but it's doubtful. He's entirely free to leave: the easiest escape he's ever made.

The part of Bucky's brain that has been in nonstop escape-fight-back-survive for seven years takes over, and he's actually grateful. It's easier, less painful than whatever this other thing is, this pretending to be a person again.

As he gathers his meager belongings - a few changes of clothes, his new phone and a knife he surruptitiously stole from the kitchen - Bucky's heart gives a dull pang: it's also the hardest escape he's ever made.

As he removes the screen and crawls through the open bedroom window, Bucky tells himself he's saving them. They don't need to know about what they can never understand.

That was a year ago, now.

With the cellphone his family had given him in the hospital with all their numbers already inputted into it, Bucky managed to call off a search party and prevent them from launching a missing persons file; he cajolled and reassured, made excuses and called them a few times to reiterate that this was his decision: yes, he was in full possession of his faculties; yes, he knew where he was and had a way to leave if he wanted to - he just needed some time. He's sorry he left like that; he'll come back when he's ready. He wants to see them. He wants to. Just not right now. Later, maybe. Yeah, definitely. Maybe next month. Or maybe the one after that - when he's feeling a bit better.

When it eventually became clear that 'later' might mean 'never,' the frantic calls and text messages had increased. They got angry; Bucky waited it out, knowing the frenzy would die off, and sure enough, slowly, the calls and messages slowed to a trickle.

It killed him, and he did it anyway. Bucky could hardly articulate why; the words were not there but the oppressive feeling that lived in his chest needed no words to sequester them off. It felt like autopilot, instinct, like the most natural and only choice he could make, somehow.

Only a few persistent members of Bucky's family continued trying to contact him: Becca and his mother; aunt Lyla who lived on the West coast and had always been fond of him sent a message every now and then updating him on her garden after she'd heard he was alive, and a couple of cousins who seemed to send off emails like clockwork regardless of his response or lack thereof.

Each unanswered message holds the weight of the sun and rots his heart. He doesn't bother to check most of them.

Steves' takeaway menu with his number and the VA's quickly joins the throng of Unanswerable Missives, and Bucky ignores it along with the rest, with one small exception:

Although he is almost terminally repelled by any kind of organization, Bucky does look up the address of various VA's in the city in the days following the Steve Incident™️ and matches one with the phone number Steve gave him. He treks out after a sleepless night to go and find it, and sits on a bench across the street as the sun rises, watching the VA like a thief keeping an eye on a high security place he might rob if he gets desparate enough, which is not so far from the truth. He tells himself that the VA is a backup plan, a last resort if things ever get really bad, though how bad they would have to be to inspire him to go in remains unclear.

Bucky thinks the matter of Steve Rogers the Mysterious Matrix Ninja is all but behind him until he's walking past the mailboxes in the front entry of his building one day and sees how full his box has gotten; the mailman left the little metal door hanging open this time, where the compartment is stuffed beyond capacity. Buckye sighs, awkwardly extracting what is mostly fliers anyway. A heavy cream colored envelope slips out from the stack and falls to the floor, and he has to carefully perch the rest of the junkmail on top of the mailboxes to retrieve it.

The envelope is made of thick paper, embossed with fancy curclycue designs stamped into the corners; it has the dimensions of a hallmark card instead of regular mail, and on the back Bucky's address is scrawled in very tasteful handwriting, a smaller return address he doesn't recognize in the top left corner, but the name above it reads clearly in looped cursive: Steve Rogers.

Baffled and intrigued, Bucky thumbs open the flap, which is sealed only at the apex, easy to tuck his finger under it unlike most envelopes, which he has to rip open painstakingly with his teeth or come up with a whole precarious setup involving his foot and a knife. This one has been carefully sealed almost as if... he doesn't think about that too hard, shakes out the contents and stares down at the card in his hand transfixed.

The front is more plain-but-expensive off-white paper with embossed designs pressed into it, but it's not the paper that catches his attention. Centered where professional art would usually go is what is obviously an original drawing - of himself. It is Bucky like he has never seen himself before: a sparse yet striking likeness of his upper torso and face and arm, turned to the side but looking at the viewer, the eyes bright with something keen and alive. He looks interesting. He looks handsome. There's a flash of some mischief in the drawing that Bucky had no idea was still inside him, let alone something that Steve could have seen. He thought they'd beat it all out of him, yet here it is, a humorous slant to his mouth and eyes like some tenacious wildflower that Steve has captured perfectly with a few minimalist strokes of lead.

Carefully, as though he's holding a fragile artifact, he opens the card.

Bucky, the inside of the card reads in flowing handwriting that matches the script outside the envelope, I hope that sending this card is alright; I didn't get your number the other night so I was hoping you'd call or text, but I didn't want to leave it up to chance. I have an eidetic memory, so the address was easy to remember.

I know it was a bit of a strange way to meet, but I'm so glad we did. Everything about you makes me want to know more. I really like you and I would love the chance to get to know you better. What would you say to a date?

Here's my number again, you can call or text and let me know either way if you want to. I'll assume it's a no if I don't hear from you, and I promise not to come barging into your life again unasked - unless it's for another chance to kick that guy's ass ;)

212 975 3786

Yours,

Steve

p.s. - not to sound too desparate, but - please? I almost never meet anyone I click with like I did with you. Was that just me or did you feel it too? Anyway. I'll stop there before I embarrass myself any further. I really hope you say yes.

The postscript is followed with another drawing - a doodle, really - of a cartoon monkey holding a bouquet of flowers between interlocking fingers, eyes and hands squeezed tight in a melodramatic gesture of supplication.

Bucky comes back to himself in the front lobby, grinning down at the last little sketch like a loon. His chest swells with an unfamiliar sensation - happiness? Is that what that is? - and he carries the card and the stack of mail up to his apartment in a daze, thoughts going a thousand miles per hour.

The formality of the gesture - sending an actual card with handwriting like Bucky's some kind of... modern royalty is ridiculous, it's overkill, and it's absolutely 100% something that the overly good, overly decent guy he met the other night would do, he thinks. The drawings come as a complete surprise, though. He glances back at the sketch on the front of the card, feeling strangely... shy. Is that what he'd really looked like with Steve? Did Steve draw that from memory?

Prompted by that thought, Bucky quickly googles eidetic memory on his phone and stares at the definition. Huh. He looks at the card and then his phone again, piecing it together. The comment seemed strange upon first reading - of course Steve knows where Bucky lives, Bucky showed it to him - but now he thinks it might be Steve's subtle way of trying to explain how he captured his likeness without a reference for the drawing, too.

The reminder of Steve's talent brings yet another sense of inadequacy, though.

It's a terrible idea. Steve deserves better than him. He might as well be prince charming here, and Bucky is a disaster wrapped in human skin.

...But he'd said please. He'd obviously put himself on the line, made himself vulnerable for this, and just like their kiss that night, Bucky feels pulled along helplessly in the wake of it, compelled into responding despite his reasoning screaming that he's just going to get himself hurt. But not responding might hurt Steve, and right now that feels even worse.

Before he really knows what he's doing, Bucky's unlocking his phone and opening up a new message, typing the number on the card that no doubt matches the one Steve scribbled on the takeout menu two weeks earlier, and then he's sitting on the couch with his fingers hovering over the keyboard, and he makes a decision.

He'll say yes. Because Steve is kind and good and deserves better than him, Bucky will say yes and he'll go on a date with Steve so Steve can figure out for himself why he's damaged goods and not worth the effort. He will offer himself up for the humiliating experience of being found wanting because otherwise Steve will get an idea of Bucky stuck in his head that isn't even close to the reality, that Bucky could never live up to, and he might go on believing Bucky rejected him, when it should by all rights be the other way around. This way he can give Steve the gift of seeing all the damage for himself and letting the other man move on peacefully. It's only fair. So he types up a quick message and hits send before he has time to overthink it:

Bucky: Hey steve; it's bucky. I got your card :) Yes. When?

Then he busies himself stacking dishes in the sink to soak to distract himself from the anxiety pinging along the floor of his stomach at the thought of Steve actually getting that and reading it.

He doesn't have to wait long before an answering text pings back, and Bucky embarrasses himself with the speed at which he scrambles to dry off his hand and pick up his phone.

Steve: Bucky! I'm so happy to hear from you, you have no idea! How does 12 o'clock Saturday sound? Picnic in the park? I can pick you up :)

Bucky has to check his phone calendar to confirm that yes, Saturday is indeed the day after tomorrow.

Bucky: sounds good ;)

He turns back to the sink feeling lighter than he has in two weeks.

--

Steve is there at exactly noon on Saturday just as he said he'd be, which would be mildly disconcerting if Bucky hadn't already predicted freakish punctuality to be yet another Steve Trait. He peers down at the street through the window blinds at eleven fifty-nine and sees Steve pull up.

He's straddled over a motorcycle, some steel and rubber monstrousity that Bucky would no doubt know the name of and be suitably impressed by if he paid any attention to that kind of thing anymore. There's - of all things - an old style wicker picnic basket settled at the back of the bike, strapped between two black saddle bags.

Steve lowers the kickstand and turns the bike off, settling it into position next to the curb. He's wearing plain jeans and yet another white tshirt, and over top of the shirt, inexplicably, is a black harness of some kind. His helmeted head is tilted over his phone screen, shading it, texting someone.

Bucky's already halfway down the creaky stairs of the building when his pocket vibrates; he doesn't bother to check what it says. No prosthetic today; Bucky has had neither the time nor the inclination to get a new one. He's wearing his cleanest pants and a henley under his well worn leather jacket, and he's managed to shave this time.

He thinks it has the desired effect on Steve when he emerges out onto the street; Steve's eyes immediately find him as the front door swings open, and he's smiling, wide and soft like he's seeing exactly what he hoped for, and his eyes linger along Bucky's jawline. Bucky stares right back at the way Steve is filling out the white tshirt, which seems too obscene for such a plain wardrobe item; his shoulders, broad and rounded, threaten the limits of the garment, and are only emphasized by the thick black lines of the harness, which looks like a gun holster of some kind, sans weapons, now that Bucky sees it up close: two straps frame his pectorals, underlined by a third horizontal line of polyester at his solar plexus. The outline of his nipples press against soft cotton, and Bucky cannot help staring. And staring.

"Is this your way of telling me you're into kink?" He says once he finds his voice again, not even bothering with hello as he tears his eyes away and forces himself to look up at Steve's face.

"Not usually," Steve says, his expression divided somewhere between embarrassed and amused, "But for you? Maybe."

And. What a thought. Bucky tries to shove it out, but Steve blushes, like he hadn't meant to say that, and Bucky's stomach honest-to-god swoops low in his gut. he swallows and mentally shakes himself.

"Nice ride," he comments for something else to say, and Steve ducks his head, pleased. It shouldn't be as endearing as it is.

"You ever been to the Rockefeller State Reserve?" Steve asks.

Bucky hesitates. "I don't think so. Sounds like a swanky rich person place to me," he says, only half teasing.

"Not that swanky," Steve protests, sounding defensive and a little whiny, and it makes Bucky grin.

"Sounds like something a swanky rich person would say," Bucky retorts immediately, and Steve's jaw drops open in mock outrage even as his eyes twinkle with glee.

"You only have to pay for parking!" He says, and Bucky can't help the laugh that rips put of his throat at that indignant tone coming from this Greek god of a man. 

"It's about an hour and a half from here," Steve says hesitantly, "That okay?"

And it shouldn't be so easy to say yes, but somehow Bucky's glad - glad that they will have to spend so much time together before Steve inevitably comes to his senses and realizes Bucky's not good enough. Plus the motorcycle ride sounds genuinely fun, much funner than a car ride would have been, and the idea of holding onto Steve while they whip down the road at unholy speeds is growing more appealing by the second.

He nods. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Here," Steve says, lifting something from the handlebars. "I've got another helmet," he explains, and tosses a leg over the seat easily to approach Bucky.

"Can I?" He asks, and Bucky huffs, riding a line between amusement and something a little too raw, unused to being asked for permission to touch. He nods and Steve moves the hair out of Bucky's face, tucking a few strands gently behind his ears before sliding the helmet on and -

Bucky jerks back, dislodging the helmet where it meets the crown of his head, his heart suddenly hammering and his eyes wide. For a second he wasn't here, he was - and they were -

[the sound and smell of the electricity, metallic and hot invades his nose, and he's struggling against the restraints on his wrists as the pain splits his head -]

"Sorry," he gasps, immediately knowing the helmet is a no go, that if that's a requirement for this date then he's already failed. "Sorry, I can't - "

"It's okay," Steve says quickly, withdrawing the helmet, that same concern flashing over his face before he stores the offending item in one of the saddlebags, and unfastens the buckle under his own chin. "Here; we'll both not wear one; I prefer it this way anyway," his tone is calm as he puts the mandatory safety equipment out of sight, just like that. Bucky stares at him, eyes wide, expecting a challenge, expecting to be pushed, forced, at the very least interrogated. Instead Steve smiles in the sun and the light catches in his golden hair. Tentatively, Bucky smiles shakily back, astounded that they're just going to move on.

Steve nods at Bucky and looks somewhere down his torso and says, "You'll probably want that done up, though. The wind can get a bit strong."

Bucky looks down and sees that he's talking about the leather jacket, perpetually open since Bucky can't do the zipper up one handed. He looks up to see the other man watching him carefully.

"Can I?" He asks again, something soft in his eyes, and it's as much a redo as it is an offer for practical reasons, and Bucky swallows and nods, physically beating down the adrenaline from the flashback as he waits.

Steve steps into his space slowly, needlessly running his hands up and down the open front of the jacket, the motion intentional, deliberate, as he meets Bucky's eyes, and then his fingers slide the pin into the box at the base and he pulls the zipper slowly up the teeth to his chin, gaze unwavering and hungry. Bucky thinks Steve is going to kiss him - wants him to, at that - but at the last second he lets go and turns away instead.

"Ready?" He asks, and Bucky nods, speechless for a number of reasons, as Steve walks back to the bike and throws his left leg over the seat. He looks over his shoulder at Bucky expectantly, and Bucky follows, still stunned by the easy acceptance and change of plans. There is an obvious space for him behind Steve, and Steve scoots forward even further to allow him room to settle in. Bucky swings a leg over and straddles the bike with the wicker picnic basket at the small of his back.

As soon as he slides into place, Bucky understands the utility of the harness, and the reason why Steve is wearing it: it's something sturdy to grab onto, giving Bucky something to hold one-handed. With a twist of emotion he hardly knows what to do with, Bucky leans against the warmth of the heavily muscled back in front of him and reaches his arm around Steve's side to grab at the juncture where the shoulder strap meets the horizontal one across his chest. The hold feels secure and steady as the motorcycle fires up beneath them and pulls away from the curb, rumbling on down the street.

Steve made it so easy. Without even mentioning it, without needing to be asked, he already thought of and accommodated Bucky so he could ride on a motorbike with him. The thought lands oddly, light yet strangely sharp; Bucky turns his face into Steve's broad back and breathes in the smell of skin and sweat and laundry detergent there and feels safe despite himself. When they lean into sharp turns, there's no panic. When Steve guides them out of city traffic and onto a stretch of highway Bucky doesn't know that well and turns up the speed, Bucky just feels his heart leap with excitement. When he takes them outside of New York city limits, Bucky doesn't even think about it. And with it comes a pang of something else, sharp like grief and Bucky's glad the wind is roaring in their ears when his breath hitches and he feels a few tears quickly ripped from his cheeks and dried in a matter of seconds.

They drive for a long while, the wind roaring in their ears as the road speeds by beneath them, Steve expertly navigating around the other cars on the road and somehow always finding pockets where they can ride virtually alone for minutes at a time, unbothered by the other traffic.

The cityscape changes around them until they reach a hilly stretch which Steve seems to particularly relish, speeding up as they crest the zenith of each ridge, and Bucky can't help but grin into his back whenever Steve lets out a whoop of joy as they plummet down another dip. Bucky leans into the muscled back and shifts his hold on the harness, letting his grip fall lower, to the center of the strap across Steve's solar plexus and closes his eyes against the wind, breathing in and out for a while, heart hammering with joy and something close to contentment for the first time in almost a decade.

Eventually they turn off the highway onto a smaller road lined with trees and pass a sign announcing the reserve, and Steve pulls into a parking lot a few hundred meters in.

"Alright?" Steve says as soon as he kills the engine and they both dismount. Bucky is flexing his hand, letting his legs adjust to the ground again. He nods and then looks around at the parking meters.

"Better pay the Rockefeller foundation for your parking privileges or their families will starve," he quips, and Steve chuckles. The sound warms Bucky's chest.

They pay for parking - six dollars - and head down one of the less populated trails, away from the rec building and tourist shops. Steve takes the picnic basket with him as they walk. The wide gravelly pathways are lined with maples and oaks; the landscape around them is strewn with wildflowers and birds flying high among the canopies, calling out in a euphony of trills and tremolos. Monarch butterflies flit from flower to flower within the high grass.

They stop at a sturdy wooden picnic table with lush grass tufts all around the feet and leafy trees surrounding them, giving the spot a sense of privacy under the sighing leaves, and damn, maybe Bucky forgot about this a little bit.

It's been so long since he was outside - really outside, and with a start Bucky realizes he hasn't come anywhere like this since his captivity; it's just been home with his family after the hospital and then the city. He hadn't even thought to leave it once since he got here.

He must be quiet as Steve starts fussing with the basket, but Steve doesn't interrupt, and Bucky gratefully finds himself breathing in great lungfuls of sap-sweetened air, looking up at the bright blue sky while the wind tousles his hair.

He turns around to see Steve watching him quietly from where he's standing over the picnic table, his eyes thoughtful and intense, but he smiles easily when he sees Bucky look over.

"I brought out my fine china," he says, gesturing to the two hard plastic cups he's evidently pulled out of the basket while Bucky was turned around, and Bucky huffs a laugh.

There is an actual picnic cloth spread over the table - bona-fide white and red checkered print and everything - and on it are two big steam-filled glass tupperware containers with some forks, as well as what looks to be pomegranate juice in one of those fancy glass juice bottles, and something that looks like wine but on closer inspection -

"Appletiser?" Bucky reads curiously, head tilted to read the label and eyes squinting, unsure what he's looking at.

"It's non alcoholic," Steve explains quickly. "It's basically carbonated apple juice; it's nice with the pomegranate," he adds this like he's vaguely embarrassed with how satisfied he is with himself, and Bucky bites back a smile, fond despite himself.

"Why non alcoholic?" He asks, although he thinks the answer is probably something noble and chivalrous. Sure enough:

"I wasn't going to drink and wasn't sure if you would want to," Steve says sheepishly, sliding into the bench seat, and Bucky joins him across on the other side. "Do you drink?" He adds.

"Nah," Bucky says immediately, and then realizes that most people follow that up with a non-insane reason that doesn't involve being injected with so many drugs against his will for years on end that he'll never see the appeal of anything other than nicotine and coffee. "It's not really my thing," he says weakly, trying to cover the conspicuous silence with something not totally mood killing. But Steve just nods like that's completely normal.

"Me neither," he says with a note of what sounds oddly like relief, and Bucky almost pursues it before he realizes that digging for personal knowledge not freely offered might be seen as an invitation to do the same thing in return and he preemptively shuts up. Looks back at the picnic spread.

"So what's this," he says, indicating the tupperware, and Steve lights up.

"Open it and see," he says with obvious delight. Bucky flashes him a look of nervous curiousity and carefully snaps open the lid, still warm to the touch - that picnic basket must have foil inside it or something.

When he gets the lid off, the smell that wafts up is - incredible. That's what Bucky notices first, and his stomach is already contracting with interest as he looks down at some kind of pasta with a creamy white sauce. Bits of tomato and olive and chives are mixed in, as well as black flecks that look like spices of some kind.

"This smells amazing," Bucky admits, picking up his fork to begin poking at it. Across from him Steve is doing the same, unlocking the lid of his own dish which looks just the same.

A passing thought like a dark cloud flashes through Bucky for a moment - what if it's dosed with something? This is the perfect location to make off with a limp body, no witnesses - and he shakes it off with almost violent force internally, annoyed that his mind even went there.

This is nice. Steve is good; what's happening here couldn't be farther from all that. Bucky ramps down the paranoid impulse to reach out and swap their dishes to test Steve and instead plunges his fork into the -

"Fettuccine alfredo?" Bucky says in surprise, and it's like speaking a spell, this word from another lifetime, foreign in his mouth.

"Yep; it's my friend Pepper's recipe; she taught it to me," Steve says proudly, watching Bucky's reaction hopefully.

"Oh," is all Bucky can think of to say, and then he takes a bite.

He thinks he moans; he's not too sure, only distantly aware of what sounds he is making, because this is... food.

Bucky had forgotten about food. He doesn't make his own from scratch, and rarely eats out. It's all prepackaged instant oatmeal and ramen noodles and protein bars. He eats for efficiency, out of necessity: not to enjoy. and he has been fine with that, because until this moment it didn't occur to Bucky that he was missing out on anything.

This tastes like life. Like cheese and salt and cream and fresh tomato and pepper and a tang of lemon. And it's warm, obviously freshly made and someone made it for him and suddenly Bucky feels alarmingly like he might cry, so he stops, fork hovering in the air, and Steve freezes with him.

"Okay?" He asks, and Bucky manages to nod and duck his head, tilting his face partially out of sight at the same time.

"It's good," Bucky manages to say without his voice being completely mangled by emotion, and Steve smiles, bright and pleased. Bucky continues eating at a subdued pace, savouring the richness and burst of flavour with every forkful, trying very hard not to just inhale it. It feels like his entire body is trying to absorb every nutrient in it like it's aching, and distantly Bucky wonders when's the last time he actually went out of his way to eat a vegetable. That could certainly explain some things.

Steve is pouring juice into their cups when Bucky finally resurfaces from his fettuccine-alfredo-induced fugue state; first the concentrated pomegranate goes in, rich red and beautiful but a bit too much like blood for Bucky's taste, and then thankfully the light sparkling apple juice, which changes the drink to a much more appetizing pink color which fizzes along the surface. Steve raises his clear plastic cup in a toast.

"To serendipitous encounters," he says grandly, and Bucky snorts.

"To getting beat up in an alley," he counters, and Steve immediately rallies.

"To getting beat up all over Brooklyn!" He concurs, tapping their glasses together jovially, and they both take a long drink. Steve is right; the apple cuts the oppressively rich tang of the pomegranate juice with sweet that pops along his tongue and makes Bucky once again reconsider his incredibly narrow dietary choices. There are options in the world, ones he has not even been considering, even if they are a little more expensive than his current grocery budget. Things that might make life more... worthwhile, were he to choose them more often. Of course, he thinks the company might have a lot to do with the enjoyment, as well. And isn't that a terrifying thought.

"I'm surprised you haven't asked yet," Bucky's mouth says, apparently foremost in intending to ruin this for him. Well, might as well get started on that.

"Asked what?" Steve says, sounding genuinely clueless, and it makes Bucky's heart pang.

"The arm," he answers shortly, eyebrows raised, and Steve pauses to set down his cup on the picnic table.

"I kind of figured you'd tell me if you wanted to."

"Oh." Bucky has no idea what to say to that.

"Is this you wanting to?" Steve asks, and Bucky considers this and decides, fuckit. Why not.

"I was a military lab rat - well, I say military. One of the experiments went wrong and they had to cut it off." He finds that's about as much as he can say before his heartrate starts to rise distressingly high, so Bucky distracts himself with the bubbly pomegranate juice and works on steadying his breathing.

"What?" Steve's voice is more distraught than Bucky expected. He looks dismayed, as if this is somehow personal bad news Bucky is delivering, which is absurd. Bucky swallows and reminds himself of his promise to himself not to hold back: let Steve see him, see the disaster he should be grateful to have avoided once he knows enough.

"After I joined the military, there was a... program that they said I could join. I joined voluntarily at first but it wasn't so voluntary after that." That's putting it lightly.

"What was the program for?" Steve says slowly.

"I don't know. Human experimentation, I guess? They didn't actually explain much once the door locked behind me."

Steve's lips are a grim line. "I'm sorry," he says, and it's so sincere that Bucky has to look away.

"Me too," he says, and his voice comes out raspy. "If it wasn't for Insight, they probably never would have found me."

Something complicated - confusion, shock, hope, fear - flashes across Steve's face. "What?" He says.

"The people who had me, they were called HYDRA. I found that out later: some sort of secret nazi organization embedded in... well, everywhere. When SHIELD found them and purged their system, that's when they found me, too."

"I know about that." Steve's voice is strained, and when Bucky looks up his face is ashen. "I was there, I was... part of the crew that discovered the HYDRA infiltration," he explains hurriedly, but Bucky's heart is slamming against his chest with abandon.

"You're part of SHIELD?"

"Yes. Or I - was, until it dissolved."

"Oh."

"Bucky -"

"Sorry," Bucky says, standing very hurriedly and striding away. "Sorry," he calls again without looking back, and scrambles up the nearest hill.

He doesn't know where he's going, he just has to - has to -

He walks for a long time, striding through the trees, off the path and around bushes and small gullies: he wanders for so long that his heart rate has time to slow down to a normal beat, and he has time to think.

Steve was part of SHIELD. He was part of finding HYDRA in their midst, in fact, that's - that's good, right? Isn't it? Yes. Of course it is. He might even be as good as directly responsible for Bucky getting out of there, for all he knows, if what Steve says is true.

And Bucky -

Trusts him.

Mostly.

He just needs to figure out how the hell to get that information to his body, which is feeling twitchy as all hell at the mere mention of those people, those soldiers and scientists and 'doctors' that held him captive for so long: HYDRA. And SHIELD was HYDRA, some of them anyway, but Steve's not... he couldn't be. Right?

The soft swish of grass against his clothed knees and the smell of earth and plants soothe his nervous system. Bucky follows the faint watery scent on the wind until the tree foliage opens up overhead, and he instinctively seeks for the most wide open space and open sky.

Steve finds him at the edge of the lake, staring out at the waves as they lap softly against the gravelly beach. He approaches slowly, from far away and well within Bucky's sightline the whole time, walking along the shore, so that when he finally comes to a stop at his side there's no surprise. Bucky swallows.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, voice low and achingly sincere. "I had no idea about your history with all that or I would have told you sooner."

"You're not...?" He starts, unsure how to spell out what he's pretty certain he knows, but still needs to hear. Luckily, Steve catches on.

"God no. No! Never. HYDRA is... literally everything I stand against. I can't believe they were part of SHIELD, that I was working for them, I would have never in a million years worked for SHIELD if I had known, Bucky, I swear to god -"

"It's alright; I believe you," Bucky cuts him off, raising his hand. "I just needed to hear it."

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," Steve says again, and he sounds wrecked. Bucky turns and gives him a tight smile.

"It sounds like maybe you were part of the reason I even got out of there," he offers.

"I certainly hope so," Steve growls. He turns to face the lake angrily, like it's wronged him, and for once Bucky is the calm one as they both stare out across the water.

"It's not your fault, Steve," he says, suspecting the other man is blaming himself too much for this. As if to support this theory, Steve huffs disbelievingly.

"It's not. They were strong, extremely organized and secretive: I would know, they held me captive for seven years. Their codes had codes; I barely understood a word they were saying to each other half the time in front of me and I was their prisoner, it wasn't like they were being that careful for my sake. It's a miracle you and the rest of SHIELD even discovered them."

But Steve is already shaking his head, the stubborn punk. "Fascism leaves marks," He says obstinately. "Distinctive patterns, if you know what to look for. And looking back, those patterns were all there. We just didn't want to see them."

"Yeah, well," Bucky huffs, sort of done with this whole topic for now. "Next time you'll see them."

"Yeah," Steve agrees quietly.

Bucky tips his face back and lets the sun soak into his skin, his hair. He sighs and undoes the zipper of the jacket, backs up a few steps onto the grass and lowers himself down, nodding for Steve to follow when the man looks unsure. He does, sitting cross legged beside Bucky, and Bucky lets himself fall down onto his back and just breathe.

They lay on the grass by the lake for a long time, absorbing the sun and the wind and the smells, the sound of waves cresting gently beneath the birdsong, and Bucky can't remember a better day, possibly ever. He's warm and fed and happy and free and there's someone beside him that he likes and wants... he wants, for the first time in years, and Bucky turns slightly to squint at Steve's profile, his eyes closed against the aun, and Bucky resolves right then to do anything to keep this man in his life for as long as he'll tolerate him. But he'll also be honest.

He rolls over onto his side and faces Steve, elbow in the grass, head in his hand, and stares at him for a minute. Steve turns his head and stares back, skull cradled in both palms, eyes bright and dreamy with reflected light.

"You know I'm a hooker, right?" Bucky verifies, and Steve squints at him.

"Not necessarily?" The other man responds slowly, more calm than he'd expected. "But - look, Bucky... I mean, that's not gonna scare me off, okay? All I know is that I like you. I wanna explore this. So long as neither of us is already exclusive and committed with someone else - I mean. Is that okay with you?"

Bucky stares at Steve incredulously.

"What?" Steve says.

"I'm going to kiss you now," Bucky announces, in lieu of a response, and makes good on his threat a moment later as his lips meet Steve's. Steve makes an aborted sound of surprise and gently grabs the excess leather at the shoulders of Bucky's jacket and rolls him slightly over him, and Bucky dives into his mouth, so good and sweet and soft he moans into it, and finds an answering moan arching up into him as Steve licks into his mouth and takes and takes and takes while Bucky slides his knees around the other man's waist and begins to grind down mindlessly, sinking into the hard lines of Steve's body.

He feels like he could stay here for hours, just like this, the sun hot on his back, Steve warm underneath him, licking the kisses off of Steve's tongue, except the fly of his pants is digging into his growing erection and he groans at the thought of the one and a half hour ride back.

He pulls back from Steve's lips, pink and debauched now, and stares at him for a moment before saying, very deliberately, "I think you should come back to mine."

Steve surges up to meet his lips again and then the two of them are fighting to sit up without pulling away from the kiss.

"Are you sure?" Steve breathes into a brief respite, and Bucky whacks him on the shoulder for it, and Steve laughs, big and loud and bright right in his ear.

--

They make it back to the motorcycle and even remember to go back for the picnic basket, which Steve had abandoned on his mission of carefully tracking Bucky across the park after he got up and left.

Steve rezips Bucky's jacket between another impromptu makeout session in the parking lot - and wow, Steve has gone from one kiss in seventy years to suddenly, maybe, hundreds all in quick succession, or five long ones if you counted it in sessions - and then they're back on the bike, Bucky's warmth at Steve's back, his hand wound under Steve's right armpit and tangled in the empty gun harness Steve wore for this exact purpose.

He is slightly regretting not bringing his own jacket as they head off into the cooling daylight, but it's not much of a bother; the serum fires under Steve's skin and makes him unnaturally warm, and if his seventy years in the ice have proven anything it's that there's nothing even the coldest summer wind could do to permanently damage him.

Still, it's nice to feel the warm human heat at his back, and nicer still to feel the flame of affection growing between the two of them, not to mention... Steve can't help but smile widely at the evidence of Bucky's interest digging into his lower back as well, and Bucky makes no effort to hide it, draping himself more firmly across Steve's back than he had before and moving his hips subtly every now and them, a slow and torturous grind, and it's got Steve firing up more than the bike's engine to get them the hell home.

Some of that heat has cooled however by the time they reach the city limits again, and Steve finds his mind wandering through the events of today and catching on a memory of the ride out; there had been a moment when they had first taken off down the highway at speed where he thought he'd heard a sob and felt Bucky convulse slightly agajnst his body, but when he'd looked back Bucky turned away; Steve wonders what that was now.

It's obvious there was more to this trip for Bucky than just going out on a date; the way he'd reacted to the park, the food, and even the bike if Steve is reading him right has Steve wondering how long it's been since Bucky's done anything nice like this. He seems strangely and almost dangerously alone; has anyone helped him since he got free of HYDRA? It's only been a year since Insight; has he even gotten free of them, or is Bucky still locked up in his mind while his body is free? Unfortunately, Steve is beginning to suspect some of the latter.

And god, that thought makes Steve's chest ache. What Bucky had gone through would make him feel that way anyway, but to learn that it was HYDRA, that it was on his watch, that burns like a hot coal in his heart, knowledge that Steve cannot close his eyes to. People were hurt by his negligence, by his failure to recognize and take down HYDRA in the first place, and Bucky is one of those people.

By the time they get back to Bucky's apartment Steve has wound himself back up about it, but he tries not to show it as Bucky leads them up the stairs in a strange echo of the night they met. The apartment is tidier this time; it's clear Bucky put in a bit of effort to clear it up, though it's far from clean, but they both ignore that as Bucky leads Steve backwards through the front door with another kiss.

They are sitting on the bed where Steve patched him up those few weeks ago, and Steve brushes back his hair tenderly, thumbing the jaw that was swollen that night. The bruising is all gone, and for a moment Steve wonders vaguely if that's a normal healing time, and even more vaguely he wonders if HYDRA's experiments were in any way related to creating more supersoldiers like Captain America, and if so if they had any success.

But then he's thinking about other things, like the feeling of damp breath under his ear, hot and sudden, and a hand against his crotch, and Bucky's eyes, so pretty and smoldering with lust as he pulls back from kissing along Steve's neck, his lips red and wet as he licks them, and murmurs,

"Can I blow you?" In a warm, seductive voice, and Steve's nodding even as Bucky sinks to his knees and pulls the front of Steve's jeans open.

It still feels fast somehow, and Steve vaguely wonders if he's a prude, when Bucky's tongue sliding over the tip of his cock knocks that thought away and Steve gasps.

Warm, wet heat envelops him as Bucky sinks down onto his length and it's the most mind melting feeling Steve can recall this century.

His hips twitch involuntarily, and Steve concentrates on stilling them with all his power, which is a challenge because Bucky's tongue is making slick, firm passes all over his length as he moves up and down on it, his lips perfect at keeping the suction hard and constant, and Steve sort of feels like he needs to escape from it, squirm away because nothing should feel this good, he wasn't prepared to feel this good ever, actually -

And all at once it's too much.

"Stop stop stop," Steve gasps, and Bucky pulls off him, surprised, and to his horror Steve takes in a sharp burst of air and feels himself sob. "Sorry," he says quickly, drawing his knees up onto the bed protectively, and Bucky sits back on his heels, chagrined.

"Well that's the first time I've made someone cry with a blowie," he says lightly, wiping at his mouth, but he sounds worried.

"Sorry," Steve says again, stupidly. He has no idea how to explain to this wonderful man that he did nothing wrong, did everything right actually, and that's maybe just a bit why Steve's losing it now. "Can you - would you come up here? Please?" He asks shakily, and without hesitating Bucky slides onto the bed next to him. Steve leans into him, resting his face in his shoulder and murmurs, "Thank you."

"'S it alright if I hug you or are you gonna scream or something if I do that?" Bucky asks wryly, and Steve snorts wetly into his shirt and wraps his own arms around him in answer. Bucky winds around him and leans back until they're lying together on the bed, Steve's head on Bucky's chest. Bucky combs his fingers through Steve's hair, and he shudders.

After a minute, Steve speaks in a whisper.

"I just realized while you were doing that that nobody's touched me in a long, long time," he admits, feeling pathetic saying it out loud but safe somehow, if he can say it into Bucky's chest. The hand in his hair pauses.

"How long?" Bucky asks, his voice low and raspy and the most comforting thing Steve thinks he's ever heard. He knows he needs to tell Bucky the truth soon, but doesn't want this to be the moment.

"Years," he grunts instead, trying to make it sound like something casual - only a couple! No big deal! - but he thinks he fails spectacularly, Bucky somehow hearing the feigned lightness for what it is.

"Shit." His hand resumes its movement through his hair, pressing a little harder this time. "Shit. Yeah; that'll make a guy cry during a blowie alright." He's quiet for a minute, and then: "Was it just too much all at once?" And Steve thinks about this for a moment, and finds that there's more.

"I only ever touch people to fight them," he says slowly, once again grateful he's speaking to Bucky's chest, soothed by the drumming of his heart and his warmth right under his ear. It makes him feel safe, he realizes, which is not something he usually feels, or seeks out, or even realized was missing.

"Shit," Bucky swears again, and Steve can hear it in his raspy vocals and from inside his chest, too; he revels in the small jumps of his ribcage under his head when Bucky speaks, in the booming of his heart and vocal box and the surging of the blood in his veins and the gurgling of his belly - Steve can hear it all, and he's suddenly overwhelmed again, but in a good way, and turns his face to press into Bucky's chest, breathing in the smell of him: cotton and smoke and the smells of the city and sweat and human and human and suddenly Steve's crying again, sobbing in earnest, and he can't stop it. Bucky's hand comes around to hold his face and neck against him, and he's talking, low soothing vibrations that Steve could happily drown in, he thinks.

"Easy there, tiger. I gotcha; I gotcha. Just let it out big guy." And his hand moves down Steve's back, making slow circles, and Steve crawls up him and curls around this man - this miracle of a man that somehow dropped into his life, who gets him, so fragile and strong all at once he somehow bridges the gap between Steve and the rest of humanity, has thrown Steve a lifeline without even knowing it, without even trying, effortless like it's no big deal to do what countless therapists and his friends and coworkers and even an entire government agency, the entire country couldn't do, which was bring Steve all the way home in this century.

He loses time, sobbing into the crook of Bucky's neck, clinging to him like a child as he inhales the smell of him, feels the strong line of warmth of his body all along his own, and finally, when his breathing has settles into little puffs against damp skin, Bucky shifts slightly, and the intensity of the moment fades into something gentler, and Bucky scrapes his blunt nails through Steve's hair with a gentleness that belies everything around them, from his gruff appearance to the apartment they're in, and for maybe the hundredth time since Bucky told him about what happened to him, Steve wonders who he was before HYDRA. That thought sets a few more tears leaking out of the corners of Steve's eyes and dripping down his nose, but it quickly subsides in the quiet of the dark bedroom.

"There's no rush," Bucky assures him again. "We can take our time."

Steve closes his eyes against the drumbeat of his heart beneath him.

"I'd like that."

Chapter Text

Steve stares down at the man sleeping beside him in the dim morning light.

It's dark due to the blackout curtain pulled over the bedroom window, but Steve's serum enhanced eyes can still pick out every detail of Bucky's form in the shadows. He looks beautiful, lying sprawled half naked in bed, the blanket rucked around his waist in dark contrast to the pale expanse of his back, face tucked into the crook of his elbow covering his nose. Steve can see Bucky's eyelids fluttering slightly as he dreams, dark shoulder length hair piled messily over his forehead and cheek, and Steve can't help but whisk away an errant lock from where it's caught in one of his eyelashes, smoothing it down into the rest of his hair.

Bucky shifts and sighs, and Steve drinks in the sight like it's a renaissance painting, before his eyes slide down to the exposed skin of Bucky's back, drawn with morbid fascination to the heavy scars that he's seen before, but never got a chance to examine at length. He looks again now, studying them.

All across Bucky's back are straight lines of puckered skin that Steve can't make sense of; each one looks deliberate, but they don't all seem to have the same direction or depth. Most of them are the same length, about five inches, and many of them are parallel to one another. Few intersect.

Scattered in and around these is a nasty patchwork of other scars: burn marks as big as quarters are scattered around Bucky's skin at random intervals, clustered more closely around his sides; a couple of larger areas look like old road rash of some kind, and, perhaps most damningly, there are two broad marks on Bucky's remaining arm that look distinctly like the ghostly impressions of restraints, along his upper bicep and wrist. Steve's eyes lay heavy on these for several long minutes, trying to find any other explanation than the one that's plainly evident: that Bucky either spent so long, or fought so hard, against such intense restraints that it left furrows of damaged scar tissue in its wake.

Steve's so lost in thought he doesn't notice his phone lighting up until he hears the unmistakeable claxon of JARVIS pushing the Avengers assemble alarm past his phone's Do Not Disturb mode, and it jolts Steve out of the cacoon of warmth he was floating in and back to reality like a cold bucket of ice water dumped over the head.

"Mnh - Hgnuh!" Beside him, Bucky comes violently awake, looking around in alarm for the source of the strange noise. He flinches hard when he sees Steve, before he recognizes him and sucks in a sharp breath, turning away. Steve fumbles with his phone, relaying with a series of buttons that the message is received, but the damage is done.

"Steve?" Bucky gasps, looking around with wide eyes, breath coming fast, and Steve would give anything for this not to be happening right now, of all times.

"I'm so sorry," he says, offering up what feels like a pathetically inadequate explanation to the other man: "That was just my phone; it's my work alarm that I can't shut off; it means there's an emergency. I gotta go, Buck."

"Oh - okay," Bucky says uncertainly, blinking sleep out of his eyes and still clearly trying to simultaneously calm down and orient himself in reality. Steve suddenly and viciously wishes that he had told Bucky earlier who he is, but it's too late now, and he neither wants nor has time to drop that bomb on this relationship right now, so he leans in and kisses Bucky as slowly and tenderly as he can with the scant few minutes that he has, trying to press all the unspoken words and promises he can't say against Bucky's warm, sleep-soft lips.

Bucky takes a moment to switch gears from his adrenaline high, and then he melts against him.

"I had a really good time," Steve says softly, tenderly tucking a stray lock of dark brown hair behind Bucky's ear and trying to return to the morning-after glow he'd been in before the alarm. Steve feels like a real chump for falling asleep in Bucky's bed and then leaving this way, with so little explanation or understanding on Bucky's part. "Can I take you on another date soon?" he asks, hoping Bucky hears the profuse contrition in his voice.

"Sure," Bucky says, though he still seems a little too startled to be properly processing anything. "Next week, or...?"

"I don't know when exactly," Steve admits, "But I'll - text you as soon as I can, alright?"

"Okay," Bucky agrees numbly. Steve's phone lights up again and he checks it; it's Natasha's newest phone number followed by one word: Outside. Steve scrambles to put all his clothes back on and retrieve his things while Bucky watches him with wide eyes.

By the time he's waved one last goodbye to Bucky and stepped out the front door of the apartment and onto the street, there's a bright yellow sports car waiting for him with Natasha in it.

"Bed Stuy, Steve?" Natasha says as he opens the passenger door. Natasha is as composed as ever, her short red hair styled in classic waves and a pair of huge black sunglasses perched on her elfin nose. "Seriously?"

"My motorcycle's right here," Steve gestures to the bike in question, still leaning on the door, annoyed.

"This way I can brief you on the way," Natasha says dismissively. "Plus you get the pleasure of my company. Get in, chop chop! Someone will be by to pick up your bike; I promise it won't languish on the street for too long."

"This better be good," Steve grumbles, climbing in and slamming the door - gently for him but still emphatic - as they rip away from the curb. For a superspy, Natasha doesn't drive with a whole lot of subtlety.

The enclosed bubble of the car mutes the cacophony of city noise outside even to his enhanced ears, but Steve would like these fancy cars a lot more if they didn't make his nose burn with the overpowering stench of offgassing polymers.

Natasha glances over at Steve, the sunglasses hiding whatever overly perceptive look she's giving him, no doubt noting the empty gun harness as well as a million other little details Steve hasn't had the time or motivation to hide.

"Sorry if we interrupted any of your plans," she says. There's a hint of suggestive humor, maybe even curiousity and an invitation to explain more there but Steve deigns to ignore it, feeling more irritated towards her than he knows is justified. For maybe the first time since he woke up from the ice, Steve doesn't want to be here, gearing up for a mission to save whatever it is this time. He wants to be in a bed already blocks behind them with the man still in that bed.

"Lay it on me," he sighs instead, forcibly switching gears.

Natasha looks at him for another half second before she too switches modes, her friendly, playful demeanor dropping into the hardened professionalism of a tactical officer in half a second.

"Okay; so here's the deal," Natasha says in a voice that makes Steve's blood run cold: "I'm going to tell you the situation, and you're going to promise to stay calm."

"Okay," Steve intones evenly, instantly matching her energy with contained intensity and wondering what could possibly inspire such an introduction. Steve's dealt with waking up seventy years in the future, literal aliens from outer space trying to kill them all and then Project Insight revealing that the institution he had trusted the most this century was infested with his mortal enemies. Every possibility Steve can come up with now for whatever Natasha's about to say is decidedly Not Good.

"Nick Fury called about an hour ago to point our attention to rural Arkansas; at first it was just an unusual number of suspicious wildfires, but then late last night - or early this morning I guess - someone caught this on camera; here - " Natasha passes her phone over to Steve, the video already onscreen.

Steve taps the triangular play button, and watches as a shaky phone camera points toward a blurry, naked humanoid figure crouched several yards away in some bushes.

It's nighttime in the video and the lighting is bad, but Steve can still see the figure in the bush turn suddenly towards them, mainly due to the strange almost neon undertone of their bare skin, which seems to defy the darkness surrounding them, making them easy to pick out. Clearly spotting their observer for the first time as they jolt with surprise, the person moves from a crouch to standing. Aside from no clothes, they also don't have any hair.

It's then he notices the orange hue of their skin has intensified, and the person screams. The neon undertone turns into a glow all over their body, and seams of bright yellow-gold erupt all along their limbs like cracks of molten lava beneath a cooling magma crust.

The camera holder is shaking, murmuring in a trembling voice, over and over, "Oh my god. Oh my god!"

The person before them seems no better, taking a few stumbling steps forward as they shriek with what is clearly pain; they scrabble with their hands as if to put out the fire on their own torso, then fall to the ground and roll, all the while burning brighter and brighter until they burst into flames, igniting the area surrounding them. The camera holder sprints away, sobbing with fear, and the remaining footage is a blur of motion, of stuttering panicked breaths and far off screaming.

"Jesus," Steve murmurs, passing the phone back to Natasha as the video ends, dropping it into her waiting palm like it's a dead rat that bit him. She takes it without comment as she slides it back into her pocket.

"That's when the National Guard decided to send word to Fury. From that and other reported sightings coming in to local police stations, the new assumption is that the wildfires are being caused by people that are enhanced."

"Okay," Steve says, feeling anything but as he releases a heavy gust of air.

All things considered though, even with that horrifying video, that's... still not as terrible as he had assumed. It's not space aliens trying to destroy the world, at least.

As if she's reading his mind, Natasha interrupts: "This is the part where I need you to stay calm." Of course it gets worse.

"Tony and I took a quick look at the area Fury told us about and while we were doing that, JARVIS directed us to what we understood to be an abandoned HYDRA base fifteen miles out from one of the reported sightings." Steve's shoulders stiffen at the mention of the name.

"We had a look at recent satellite images and found a flurry of activity around the base going back around three months: they've been building some kind of reinforced structure underground next to the original compound.

"And our guess is that the enhanceds are likely coming from there: we think they might be human experiments escaping and unable to control their powers, or otherwise too unstable to do so; their appearance and the timing of the build coincide, and all of the sightings and fires are within seventy miles of that base."

Steve's ears are buzzing. His thoughts immediately turn to Bucky, to everything the other man just shared with him about his captivity with HYDRA and the things that were done to him, to the scars all over his body that Steve was just looking at.

Not only that: Steve's mind turns to Azzano, to his very first mission, the one that made him into Captain America when he went to rescue the 107th Infantry, and he burns with the memories of those dying, tortured men and the knowledge that after everything, after seventy years and even doing his level best to die for the cause, he still can't seem to simply keep HYDRA from continuing their long tradition of horrific human experimentation.

"You good?"

Steve's jaw clenches and his heart quickens with rage. These aren't just random enhanced people, if what Natasha's saying is right: they're HYDRA's victims, and it's happening all over again. It never stopped.

This is just another example of how Steve's dropped the ball, not noticing HYDRA the moment he woke up and letting them gain even more traction right under his nose, not pursuing them harder with everything he had once they were discovered. Who else has been hurt by his negligence? Did the person in the video even survive? What was their name? Were they experimented on against their will too, like Bucky was?

"Steve?"

"Did they live?"

"Who?"

"That person. In the video."

Natasha's silence speaks for itself, but she follows it up anyway with a definitive, "No." Then she turns to Steve, obviously scrutinizing him. "You promised to stay calm," she reminds him.

"I am calm." He feels as furious as he's ever been but also detached, distant.

Steve can see her eyebrows lift even over the edge of the sunglasses. "...Okay," Natasha says dubiously, then she turns back and nods to herself once. "Good."

Neither of them say anything else for the rest of the drive, Natasha letting Steve stew and sort through whatever thoughts he needs to before they meet up with the other Avengers, and if Steve had any mental or emotional space to spare he'd be grateful.

They get to Avengers Tower in twenty minutes flat, Natasha pushing every definition of legality, and when they step out of the elevator onto the sixty first floor and into the briefing room Tony, Bruce, and Clint are all already there waiting for them.

"Sam?" Steve asks, glancing around hopefully as if his friend will just appear.

"He said he's extremely busy at the VA," Bruce, surprisingly, is the one that answers. "Said to only bother him for, and I quote, 'end-of-the-world shit only,' end quote."

Steve feels his lip twitch despite his mood and sees the other Avengers with various looks of amusement on their faces.

"I hate having friends with real jobs," Clint complains. "Makes me look like a real schmuck Monday morning."

"Yeah, well: time to earn your annual paycheck," Natasha says dryly.

Across the room, Tony is unusually grim, his jaw a tight line and his normally unending stream of playful quips absent. It's then that Steve remembers what his partner, Pepper, so recently went through with the Extremis project, changing her DNA without her consent to become an unstable and fiery enhanced human herself, and he realizes this must be hitting a nerve for Tony, too. Steve feels a rare sense of solidarity with the other man.

"Okay so," Tony says, stepping forward and flicking his hands in a series of gestures. A three dimensional map lights up in the center of the briefing table as the room dims. "Arkansas."

--

As the Quinjet eats up the miles between New York and their mission, the anger in Steve's gut has time to congeal into a determination harder than his shield. He barely says a word to the rest of the team after they settle on a plan. He can feel the other Avengers casting alternately curious and worried glances over to where he's sitting alone on a bench in the cargo bay, but Steve's afraid right now if he opens his mouth either swears or threats or maybe even steam might come pouring out, so he seals his lips with a flexed jaw and meticulously goes over the plan instead, inspecting his already perfect gear with sure hands and distantly wishing Sam was here.

The only thing that takes Steve's mind off those thoughts and the anger for even a second is Tony, who comes and sits next to him somewhere midway through the flight without saying a word, lost in his own dark thoughts. It's surprisingly companionable.

They cross the stateline into Arkansas before noon with a two-fold plan of attack; the first part is a roundup of the rogue/escaped enhanceds in coordination with local authorities as well as several thoroughly vetted SHIELD dispatch teams, all of whom shipped out early this morning to deal with logistics and the potential aftermath of this particular incident. The second half of the plan is a reconaissance-slash-demolition-as-feasible fieldtrip over to the reactivated HYDRA base to simultaneously see what they're up to and put a stop to it.

"Hmmm. That's odd." Bruce's quiet voice cuts through Steve's reverie, and Steve finds himself standing automatically, going over toward the cockpit to see what he's looking at. Tony and Clint join them around Bruce's tablet. Only Natasha stays where she is at the pilot's seat, listening.

"Huh," Tony says as he glances at the data, unhelpfully quiet for once.

"What's odd?" Clint squints at the screen, which shows a black and green grid with some vague shapes on it that Steve doesn't recognize. "All I'm getting is lumps."

Tony snorts. "Bingo, Legolas," he mutters, which means he's on his way back to normal. Bruce picks up the slack of Tony's usual unstoppable info-dump.

"So we just passed over the HYDRA base a couple of minutes ago and I went ahead and took some high altitude scans," Bruce says, a little too calmly. Steve's stomach clenches; he knew that was part of the plan, but he had no idea they were that close. He wonders if they intentionally didn't tell him while they were directly over the base so he didn't pop a blood vessel or break any of the supply cabinets or something.

Bruce points at one of the darker blobs on the grid and continues, "This is the old HYDRA base." His finger hovers over another section of almost solid green, "And here we have the new additions; it's showing up about as dense as solid metamorphic rock on these scans, which can't possibly be right."

"Those scanners use Starktech nanoprobes," Tony jumps in. "They should be able to see into a depth of over one hundred meters underground, even from this distance, easy; there's very few materials on earth that could block something from those."

"So what are we dealing with here, exactly?" Steve asks.

"Well, we don't know. But that's by design: it means HYDRA's hiding something in that base that they don't want us to see down there," Bruce explains, and then Tony jumps in, unable to help himself:

"And they went to an awful lot of trouble to do it, too - blocking these nanoprobes would take millions of dollars. They really didn't want us peeking at whatever it is they've built."

The team exchange uneasy glances - or, the others do; Steve feels the congealed rage thing in his chest preparing like a battering ram to get in there and destroy anything it finds.

"We're five minutes out from our first position," Natasha warns then, and a moment later Steve feels the nose of the Quinjet start to dip down in earnest.

They rendezvous with one of SHIELD's dispatch teams flying a helicopter over a vast golden field of late autumn grass. Visibility is low due to all the smoke in the area, but they can still see a ways.

The SHIELD teams have been monitoring as many of the enhanced individual's locations as they can find from the air to keep tabs on them, waiting for the Avenger's arrival.

"See the heat signature down there at your two o'clock?" Jason, the Charlie dispatch team leader, points out their quarry over the radio.

The man they're looking for is crouched in a dried up ditch full of dead bushes and thorny weeds.

They fly low enough to get a visual, but the dispatch team advises against getting any closer from above.

"Last guy burnt to a crisp the minute we tried to set down near him," Jason says. "We think the combustion is triggered by stress."

"Hell of a stress response," Bruce mutters, but no one else comments - it's a touchy subject around here.

The Avengers land the Quinjet farther out so as not to unnecessarily disturb their target; Steve, Natasha and Clint all set out on three of the jet's stealth ATVs before they close in near enough to dismount. They make the final approach on foot - or close to it, in Tony's case. Natasha takes point; they figure her presence might give them the highest chance of successful retrieval if she makes first contact.

What they get instead is a scene from Dante's Inferno: the moment the man spots them - unusually quick - he starts sprinting, but he doesn't get far before he and then the ground around him both erupt into flame.

A blast of heat like a kiln emanates from him, and Steve, Natasha and Clint can't even reach him if they tried. The man screams as roiling flames engulf him; he's glowing like a temporary sun.

"Shit!" Tony yells, zooming upward into the air above them with his thrusters, and a moment later a spray of fire-retardant foam jettisons out of one of the Iron Man suit's many attachments while the poor man writhes and claws at his own skin, just like the other person had in that video, and by the time the SHIELD helicopter is close enough to airlift him out, the man is dead.

"Shit shit shit shit," Tony keeps swearing all the way back to the Quinjet, and Steve isn't doing much better. He's shaky with useless adrenaline and in shock, playing the scene of the man exploding over and over and over again, trying to figure out what they did wrong.

Natasha sits them all down once they're back onboard and forces the team to drink water even as they do their best to talk tactics and regroup. Bruce is tight lipped as he pilots the jet up and out once more.

They meet up with two more dispatch teams and each retrieval attempt goes pretty much the same.

They try to communicate with the next enhanced, but he bolts like the first and the Avengers are forced to use their backup plan to subdue him with tranquilizers, but the darts don't take effect fast enough. They chase the man down into an abandoned farmhouse, which he sets alight as he disappears inside - too fast to be natural.

The charred remains are barely recognizable as human, but the SHIELD dispatch team dutifully stays behind for clean up. At least it answers the question of whether the fire based enhancements also give the subjects other superpowers with a vehement yes.

On the next enhanced they take no chances: Clint fires a supersoldier-strength tranquilizer arrow from the air and misses. Steve doesn't even have it in him to wonder about the fact that Clint apparently just carries those around. 

No one on the team besides Natasha has ever seen Clint miss a shot before; the enhanced woman seemed to sense the arrow before it even left Clint's bow and she dove out of the way, triggering her combustion and an ensuing wildfire. SHIELD and four firetrucks are on the scene by the time they leave.

Across from Steve, Clint is hollow-eyed and silent, unseeing as he goes somewhere else in his head.

Morale is strained to the point of failure on the jet as the Avengers sit in complete silence waiting to rendezvous with the final SHIELD team who have an active lead.

"How are we even helping," Tony laments, hands deep in his hair and tugging at the roots. Steve can't remember ever seeing the other man so close to falling apart. He realizes the other man is probably thinking about Pepper, imagining the people they are failing to save right now just as Steve has his own person in mind.

"If all that can be done for them is putting them down, better us than anyone else," Natasha states calmly, and Steve knows she's right, can see the way she's holding her shoulders back like if she doesn't they'll hunch inward with the unfamiliar weight of failure too, but he resents her a little bit for saying it anyway.

They join the search team for the next one. Steve, Clint and Natasha once again ride on their ATVs, combing the ground while Bruce launches into a search grid pattern in coordination with the SHIELD team. They cover both the North and South areas from the last known location of one of the documented sightings. Tony also joins in on the East side of the search grid, looking for any signs of life from a careful height. The day is heavy with smoke and heat and despair, but they keep going, pushing through for the sake of closure if nothing else.

It's Steve who finds their fourth and final enhanced. He pursues this one relentlessly after the failure of the others makes the bright and fierce determination in his gut burn down to something low and dogged; his earlier resolve subdued by failure, now Steve wields ferocity tempered by caution and lets it guide him.

He ditches the ATV along with his shield in favour of soft footed running; he all but crawls through fields and marshy basins, enhanced senses attuned like a human bloodhound, feeling the ground and the air and his own intuition like a spider following vibrations down a trembling web.

Around evening, Steve finally picks up a trail.

At Steve's behest the other Avengers fall slightly back and form an enormous loose circle around the perimeter of the area he's now combing through by hand, ready to step in for support but letting Steve take the lead in this.

All of his senses are attuned, razor sharp and reaching, straining -

- There!

He grips the tranquilizer gun in his hand, loaded with enough juice in each dart to take down a supersoldier, breathing silently through his open mouth as he inches through tall grasses that are increasingly giving way to cattails all around. The trail has led him to the edge of a wetland; it smells putrescent, of deep earthy wet things decaying and rotting for centuries unheeded, but the marsh provides a blessing along with its curse: though his sense of smell is obliterated, Steve can hear the lightest footfalls: the suck of mud around bare feet and the whisper of tall grass stalks bending. As he follows it, a soft breath and a faint, hammering heart come into hearing range too.

Steve slides his boots off as they threaten to give him away with their squelching and he crouches low, almost kneeling, to get his first careful glimpse of the person he's been pursuing.

It's a young woman, naked like the others they've found: her skin is a light walnut brown, but Steve can still see the unusual orange hue running underneath it, reminiscent of those neon highlighters Steve's seen here in the future, indicating whatever change that's been done to her. A few patches of her skin look more burnt than others, and the woman moves stiffly out of sight. She has no hair, just like the others.

She's slow and careful and quiet, breath short and shallow. She's scared. Steve wonders what HYDRA told her, what she thinks is going on. From the way all the others ran before they even got a chance to talk to them, he knows it's nothing good.

He lifts the tranquilizer and steps carefully forward, never taking his eyes off the patch of reeds where he last saw her.

Behind him, a Northern mockingbird chats nervously. The woman's footfalls pause, listening, but evidently she sees nothing and she eases forward, deeper into the marsh as Steve pursues her.

There is a moment where Steve thinks he's in the all clear: he has her in his sights unawares, and then the mockingbird flies up out of the bush and straight toward him, landing several feet away on the twisted branch of a long dead bush and takes up an awful raspy chew-chew!-ing noise of warning.

The woman's head turns sharply in the direction of the call and Steve squeezes the trigger of the tranquilizer gun even as the woman sees him and explodes into - fire.

Flame engulfs her, the reeds, everything, and the mockingbird startles out of the bush with a cry at the same time as the enhanced woman's scream splits the air.

Steve's moving before he can think, all the pent up energy that he spent stewing in on the jet and the frustrated rage of continual failure culminating in a blind sprint of equal parts desparation and something else, something fiercer.

Steve drops the gun and grabs her before he knows what he's doing, but the next action feels obvious as breathing as he plunges them both under the shallow water, cutting off her screams and submerging them in blessed cold.

It feels like holding onto a hot iron with his whole body, he thinks wildly, trapping the superheated skin against his supposedly fire resistant uniform, letting it melt and sear him. He won't let go. Not this time.

Swamp water boils and hisses and steams around them as Steve struggles to hold on to the impressively strong body thrashing in his arms; when Steve finally gets his head above water again, he sees that her skin is glowing hot, but its effect seems dulled, muted by the marsh or the tranquilizer or both.

"Not gonna hurt you," Steve gasps the promise he's wanted to say to every single one of these people since this awful morning began. "You're alright; you're safe." It feels like a lie, like Steve's saying the words to try and force them to be true, but he holds them both awkwardly in the water regardless, heads raised and bodies submerged, and then the woman goes limp, the tranquilizer dart apparently doing its work.

The water around them gradually returns to its usual temperature, whisking away the momentary boil as though it never happened and lapping at burnt skin with its sweet, cool kiss. Steve reaches for her pulse - noting that she is no longer unbearably hot - and with a breath of relief, finds it.

"Target secured; I need a med evac," Steve gasps into his comm, and waits for whoever gets here first. In the meantime he just holds the woman he saved, body cradled underwater in his arms, covering as much of her with the cold as possible while he keeps her airway free and stares down at her burnt, lovely face. Even like this, he thinks desparately, she's beautiful. She's beautiful because she's alive.

--

"Steve, you've got second degree burns on over twenty percent of your body," Natasha says, exasperated. "We can afford to wait a day or two for you to heal." It's been half an hour since they med evac'd the enhanced woman from the marsh with ample sedatives for transport and until they can figure out how to stabilize her.

Steve is half naked and being treated for burns that will heal in a day by a fussy former assassin in the back of the Quinjet that Bruce landed right on top of the water.

"Nat, we're already here. Let's just get this over with." His adrenaline is still through the roof and the thought of resting now is unbearable. The pain of the burns, on the other hand, is not. "We need the element of surprise anyway."

"HYDRA won't know we're here tomorrow either," Natasha says, although her tone says there's room for doubt, and Steve agrees.

"Nat," Steve repeats gently. "I'm fine. And we shouldn't delay any longer if we want to get the jump on them. I'm ready now."

Natasha sighs and pinches him directly on one of his burns, hard. "Ow!"

"Only if you prove to me you can still spar," Natasha growls. It's strange what counts for acquiescence with these people, Steve thinks with the most cheer he's felt in nearly twelve hours.

They head off to the HYDRA base that evening, after Steve changes into a non-melted tac suit and demonstrates that he can indeed still move all of his limbs despite the burns.

Clint seems to be doing a little better since this afternoon too, which is good because there was a point after that missed shot where Steve seriously considered benching him if the archer couldn't look any of them in the eye for the rest of the trip. Now he's at least smiling at Natasha's gentle ribbing and going over his arrows again like he always does before a mission.

Tony is still brooding, but with some success under their belts and a clear focus that feels more like one of their regular missions even he seems to be doing a bit better, chatting quietly with Bruce in the cockpit about scanners and things Steve doesn't totally understand.

Natasha is as functional as ever, but Steve makes a note to privately debrief with her after this and find out how much of that is a front to keep the team from falling apart without her steady composure.

They land the Quinjet soundlessly three miles southwest of the HYDRA base just after nightfall and leave Bruce in the Quinjet as emergency backup, manning the communications between the team and SHIELD as they unload the ATVs once again and Tony flies ahead in his suit.

Close-range sweeps of the compound grounds before touch down revealed that whatever the scans were unable to penetrate is a set of strange circular mounds of metal dug into the ground at roughly even intervals on the northeast side of the property.

Steve speaks softly into the comms for the first time since they left the jet: "Surveillance and recon only for now; let's find out what these metal formations are. Watch for personnel and security and prioritize stealth; do not engage unless you absolutely have to." He states the current objective in brief, clipped tones and hears a few soft affirmatives through both the comms and his physical ears.

Tony easily overrides the rolling chain link gate going in, especially since he can just fly over and hack into the empty guard shack controls from there. They leave the ATVs in a cluster of trees outside just in case egress turns out to be a little more complicated than expected.

Stepping onto the actual property on foot the burns beneath Steve's suit make themselves known, but they don't hold a candle to his determination to see this thing through.

Steve notes that the roads leading in show heavy recent traffic just as the satellite surveillance predicted: huge tire tracks are etched into the mud, and a few of the offending construction vehicles can be seen further on inside the yard in monstrous silhouette.

Automatically the team heads for the closest of the metal mounds to investigate once they're past the fence. Steve takes point on the ground while Tony hovers overhead taking more scans, and Clint and Natasha come in last on either side of Steve, securing and scanning the perimeter as they go.

When they reach it, Steve frowns. The mound is...a mound. There is no other descriptor for it. It looks like the top of a domed metal church bursting from the ground with no other distinguishing features, like the visible part of a metal marble buried in the dirt. The metal is flawless and shiny and the ground around it is flat with no plants, freshly dug and levelled.

"Tony? Got anything?" Steve asks.

"Nothing, Cap. Just stainless steel on the outside, but inside my scanners still can't see a thing. Yeah; they're definitely hiding something."

"Seems easier to hide completely underground," Clint points out quietly.

"We'll have to wait to get inside to know what they are," Natasha says, aware that none of them like it.

Steve takes a breath and considers the mission. There's four of the Avengers already on site and the fifth, arguably most powerful one in reserve: Clint and Nat excel at gathering intel undetected, Tony can hack into anything, and both he and Steve can blast or barge their way through nearly any obstacle. And they've got backup with SHIELD too if they need it.

"Alright; let's infiltrate carefully. Bruce? Can you let SHIELD know we're going in? I expect a check in every five minutes from everyone, or the rest of us go to their location for backup. We're still prioritizing recon for now; don't let anyone see you, and if they do, knock em out." The tranquilizer darts in their guns are pretty good at knocking a target out for as long as it takes to finish a mission and retrieve them for questioning later; it's not a guarantee, but they're fairly reliable.

"You got it, Cap," Bruce says over the comms. "Letting SHIELD know now."

Steve waits for the other corresponding affirmatives and then they're moving towards the base, weapons ready and moving stealthily across the compacted dirt yard. Tony goes to scout other entrances and guards from above.

They come across two more mysterious metal domes as they traverse the grounds, but where they paused to investigate the first one they move past these.

"Looks like the easiest way in is what we thought, through the west side door," Tony informs them. "Only two guards to get past there."

"Copy that," Steve says.

The two night guards near the side door are easily dispatched; Steve throws rocks at the ground until they step out of the little lean-to guard shack to check on the noise and a couple of darts from Nat and Clint have them out well and good before they even see anything.

Steve checks their pockets and discovers that the idiots didn't even have their radios on them - but they do have keys. He uses these to open the side door and let them in.

"Does anyone else feel like this is too easy?" Tony's voice drifts in over the comms five minutes later, having finished his perimeter sweep from above and followed them inside.

"Don't say that," Clint pleads. "Say something else."

"...Something else."

"Quiet," Natasha hisses. She prowls off to look for some kind of command room while Clint and Steve move steadily deeper into the base together, keeping their comms open and checking in with the rest of the team frequently.

But Tony's right: they only run into a few HYDRA agents inside the base, easily skirted, what appears to be a skeleton crew: for most of the base, the lights are off and the living quarters empty. It feels like a mix of a ghost town and a nuclear bunker. It's like they never truly expected to defend the base, but that doesn't add up if the enhanceds on the loose came from here.

It's a few steps down into the sublevel that things get even stranger.

The lower level looks to be little more than a wide metal hallway extending to a T intersection in the distance. As they step into the hall, there are no doors shooting off to the side, no break rooms or common areas, and no personnel, either. Clint reports this finding back to Natasha and Tony through the comms and asks either of them to look into it if they can. Nat reports she's found her way into a computer room and Tony makes jealous noises her way.

"I see it," Natasha's voice is tight a minute later. "I've got the floor plans."

Steve takes a few hesitant steps forward, looking to either side. After a few yards the blank hallway bulges into a circular area about twelve feet wide, and the hallway is bissected at this rounded landmark with another just like it running perpendicular, branching into four halls, every direction as bland and metallic and blank as the next.

"-teve," Natashas voice suddenly crackles through the comm, much less coherent than even a few seconds ago. Her voice is urgent. "S-ve, it's -"

Steve turns just in time to see Clints frown as he presses the comm close in his ear, and Steve hears Nat's next words through his comm instead of his own:

" - kind of transport container, you need to get out NOW."

The next millisecond a heavy metal wall descends out of seemingly nowhere between Clint and Steve; they are barely a few feet apart, but the wall slams down, separating them, and Steve hears it behind him too, whirling around to see three more sections just like it cutting off the entrances to each hallway: leaving Steve isolated in the rounded hub section that now looks for all the world like a containment cell.

He hears a sonic boom go off above them that says Tony's been discovered, and Clint yells something indistinguishable through the metal as Steve sets about hitting it from the inside with his shield. He manages to make nothing other than a few tremendously loud bangs before a hissing sound fills the room, and Steve whirls around to see a yellowish gas releasing from all sides.

"CLINT! GAS!" He roars, but it's already too late; Steve can feel the searing sting of whatever chemical it is biting into his nose and lungs as he forces down the instinctive need to cough or inhale again for as long as possible. He bangs on the metal wall with all his remaining strength, but there's little to no give, and the choking desperation inspired by the gas he inhaled along with the need to breath heavily with exertion eventually wins out and Steve's lungs expand without his permission.

His vision spots as instead of oxygen the strange gas rushes in, and lightheadedness takes over.

The last thing Steve sees as he falls to the ground and darkness swallows him up is the roof of the cell, shiny new metallic and curved like a dome.

--

Two weeks go by without another word from Steve before Bucky eventually calls his cell phone - just the once, going straight to voicemail - to make sure that's what this is:

Steve has dropped him.

Without even saying anything.

Bucky truly thought there had been something genuine between them. Steve seemed as sincere as they come, and that's where Bucky's a complete idiot.

Of course it wasn't genuine.

Steve was just playing him, or more likely - pitying him. Maybe pitying him and sincerely touch starved, like he'd said, and wanted something out of it before he dropped him.

That was fair, wasn't it?

It doesn't stop Bucky from feeling surprised and hurt. He's surprised Steve went with radio silence to end things between them, even though he himself has used that move plenty: it just doesn't seem like Steve's style. But he doesn't really know the guy, clearly.

Bucky sits outside on the fire escape smoking cigarette after cigarette, phone in his lap, staring at the last string of texts he sent to Steve, trying to will it to be different, or maybe just wrap his head around it.

Bucky: Hey Steve! How are you?

Bucky: How did the work thing go btw? I just realized i never really asked what you do

Bucky: Steve?

Bucky: Is this what i think it is? Your really ghosting me?

Bucky: Dont bother replying. I can take a hint.

There has been no word or sight of Steve since the morning he left.

Bucky remembers the rushed exit in a new light now, recognizes the excuse to leave in a dramatic rush for what it obviously was; Bucky cringes every time he remembers the way he'd leaned in for that last kiss, oblivious, buying everything the guy was selling. Steve must be laughing at how easy he was to play.

There are a million good reasons for Steve to drop him, though, and Bucky agrees with all of them. It's a good thing that he decided he wanted out, Bucky reasons. It's better this way.

The depression that descends still hits harder than he'd thought possible: despite all his defenses, despite going into it with the expectation that this would happen, Bucky still got invested. Steve had seemed different.

The world dims to a single forty watt light bulb and blackout curtains during the day; at night Bucky prowls the streets in an aimless fugue state, telling himself he's working, that he's looking for johns, without making a single pull.

Rent is due in a handful of days and Bucky can't bring himself to care, even as the deadline inches closer and the coffee can by the door remains empty save for a handful of coins rattling around at the bottom.

He uses every single dish in the entire apartment until there's nothing left to eat off of, and then stops eating altogether.

The nightmares ramp up to new, unprecedented levels and Bucky wakes up screaming so often that the neighbor in 104 bangs his fists against their adjoined wall and tucks a note under his door threatening to file a noise complaint with the landlord.

He almost texts Becca -

Bucky: Hey Bex, how's it

Bucky: Hey I'm not doing too

Bucky: Sorry

- almost, but then Bucky stares at Becca's last unanswered messages and thinks about what a piece of shit brother he's been, how little she deserves the burden of him after all she's been through. He'd be nothing but an absence apologizing for itself at this point.

He deletes the last text, shuts off his phone and puts it another room.

--

He's in the garage of their family home in Tennessee, before George died and before they moved to New York. It smells like raw wood and gasoline; Bucky's at the workbench chiseling away at a wooden horse sculpture he promised he'd make for his friend Stephanie with some of his father's tools.

Stephanie's so sick her parents took her to the hospital, and everyone at school is worried about her. Bucky's been bringing his carvings to school for months and giving them to the other kids as presents. Stephanie loves his carvings, but Bucky's teachers decided they were a distraction and the school Principal himself, Mr. Turner, eventually stepped in to ban them. In the dream Bucky is filled with the sure knowledge that completing the toy horse will make Stephanie better somehow, and he is determined.

He's absorbed in the details, chisel carefully digging into the soft grains of wood that make up the tiny horse's head, delineating the ears and mane with fine strokes. Thoroughly wrapped up in the process, Bucky jumps when the door connecting the garage to the house flies open.

George Barnes is standing there, staring down at his son from the top of the stairs. His father has high cheekbones and the same dimpled chin as Bucky's, but there's a stern look on his face.

"What is this?" George says, voice hard. Bucky's already sat bolt upright, heart hammering as he tries valiantly to block his father's view of what he's working on, but it's too late.

George thumps down the couple of steps and crowds in so he can see. He smells of aftershave as he inspects the figurine in his son's hands.

"I thought Principal Turner said you couldn't make anymore of these," George says, already furious.

"I wasn't going to bring it to school," Bucky protests.

"Like hell you weren't," George says, and he plucks the wooden horse out of Bucky's hands despite his cry of protest.

"No - dad! - it's for my friend Stephanie in the hospital, I swear; her fever's real bad and I promised her I'd make one. It's going to make her feel better, you'll see!" Bucky tries to plead his case in a short flurry of words, but it falls on deaf ears.

"You're done," his father snaps, real rage flashing in his eyes. "I'm tired of this attitude, Bucky. We talked about this. I'm not telling Principal Turner that my son disobeyed him again."

George takes the toolbag with him, plucking the chisel out from Bucky's hands and adds over his shoulder as he stomps up the stairs, "You're grounded," slamming the door behind him with Bucky's gift in hand.

He sits on the workbench, stunned, fending off the whirlpool of despair and feeling miserably that he failed Stephanie, and preturnaturally certain that this was his friend's only chance to get better.

The door opens again, and Bucky looks up to find himself staring into the face of his old drill Sergeant from Basic, Sergeant Ford. It is not a welcome face; Bucky feels himself shrinking back automatically before all the hard lessons from training kick in and he straightens his back and shoulders and stands up. He finds he is wearing his old army uniform.

"Sir," Bucky says, saluting him and standing at attention.

"Barnes," Sergeant Ford barks with no introduction, "I need you to sign these." He holds out some papers. Somehow Bucky knows without looking that the papers are the ones he signed before HYDRA stowed him away in their labs.

"Are you ordering me to, sir?" Bucky asks, not daring to look anywhere but straight ahead.

The Sergeant eyes him speculatively, and then a slow smile crawls up his face.

"Yes," he drawls. "That's an order, soldier."

Bucky wakes up in a confusing whirlwind of emotion that clings to him long after he opens his eyes.

This nightmare was not so bad; compared to the ones that Bucky usually wakes up screaming from, it hardly even counts as one. The contents of the dream never really happened anyway, not like the ones that are excruciating recreations of things Bucky's - pretty sure - he experienced in reality, and yet it nags at him.

He's still shaking it off ten minutes later on the fire escape, sucking down cigarette after cigarette and drinking his coffee. Bucky's hand trembles as he lights his third cigarette and drags the smoke into his lungs.

It's daylight for once, and the light hurts his eyes as he squints down over the street and sees the family across the way walking across the crosswalk in suits and dresses. It must be Sunday.

Bucky hardly ever thinks about his father anymore, but when he does it's not fond. Were he still alive, no doubt George Barnes would be dressed sharp and headed to a pew today as well. The man loved an authority figure, Bucky thinks bitterly. He cared more for the approval of god or his boss or even the school principal than he had for his family's emotional wellbeing - that, at least, the dream had got right. It was one of their long standing points of contention, worn and tired by the time George passed of a heart attack.

Bucky sucks in another cloud of smoke and releases it, feeling like a stranger looking at the memories of his old man. That was an entire lifetime ago. He doesn't feel grief or anger so much as he just feels numb.

Sergeant Ford, on the other hand... well, Bucky still has a few emotions left about him, actually. He tries not to think about it.

Bucky leaves the apartment that evening to go buy more cigarettes, having run out mid afternoon. By the time he's locking his place up it's nearly dark out again and Bucky's itching for a smoke.

Number 104 down the hallway opens up at the sound of keys jangling in the locks and a head of brown hair peers out.

"You know there's over-the-counter sleep aids you can get," his neighbour calls down the hall after Bucky's retreating back. Bucky doesn't even bother turning around, throwing his hand back with the middle finger straight up behind him. He hears his neighbour mutter "asshole!" To himself as he slams his door shut again.

When he arrives at the cornerstore Bucky sees the attendant eyeing him warily. He can't possibly look so hot, unshowered and dazed from hunger, eyes sunken with sleeplessness and depression. He asks for a pack of Marlboros from behind the counter and is just paying with his last couple of coins scraped together from the bottom of the coffee tin when Bucky feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Thank you," he says to the attendant, and hurries out of the store.

The feeling does not go away.

There is someone following him. When he glances back, Bucky recognizes the short brown hair and slim frame of a woman he saw earlier inside the store. Bucky picks up his pace and so does she.

He stops, whirling around to face her.

"Who are you?" He demands angrily.

"I could ask you the same question," the woman says calmly, coming to a stop a few yards away with an air of casual confidence that has Bucky's hackles rising.

"I'm no one."

"Really?" The woman steps forward with a predatory grace, her head tilting with interest. She has a beautiful face, beautiful body - beautiful everything. She could be a supermodel, he thinks stupidly. "I've met a lot of people, but I've never met a nobody before."

"What do you want?" Bucky snaps.

"How do you know Steve?"

Bucky goes cold. Oh, fuck. Of fucking course. Everything suddenly makes too much sense.

"You his girlfriend?" He grits out, resigned. The woman raises her pretty eyebrows.

"Yes," she says evenly.

"Fuck." Bucky says tightly, thinking furiously around the terrible emotion trying to erupt in his chest. "Look, I didn't know he was seeing anyone else, okay? Take it up with him."

"So you were fucking."

"We were... almost fucking. Not really, not quite. Wasn't platonic either though, sorry."

She looks hurt. Beautiful, and hurt. "I thought it was a woman," she says slowly, clearly distraught. "How did you meet?"

"I was... in a tight spot. He helped me."

"A tight spot?"

"I was getting beat up in an alley, okay? Your boy came over and saved my ass. I tried to thank him - guess it got a little out of hand. I didn't know he was spoken for, alright?"

She studies him for a moment, and Bucky feels overexposed, but then her face softens slightly and Bucky is relieved. She believes him.

"How many times?" She asks, the picture of devastation. Bucky can't imagine.

"Twice. He slept over the second time. Nothing really happened, though. Started to, but we didn't - yeah." It's excruciating, telling this stranger details of that night Bucky plays on repeat to himself in private recrimination now, but he rips it out of himself and hands it to her anyway. If she's Steve's partner, she deserves to know as much as he can manage to tell her.

"When?" The woman asks, taking a soft step forward, and Bucky steps back unconsciously, feeling a little too much like prey.

"Maybe a couple of weeks or so ago? I'm sorry, I'm not great with time. He said he had a work emergency the morning he left and I never heard from him again."

"A work emergency."

"...Yeah. Why?"

"No reason. You really haven't heard from him since?"

"No," Bucky says, "And I'd appreciate it if you left me the hell alone now. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"One more question."

"Jesus, lady."

"If I said cut off one head, what would you say?"

Bucky's heart stops. "I'd say get the fuck away from me you psychopath bitch," he spits, and he doesn't think before he's backing away and running.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She's HYDRA.

How the fuck did she find him?

Bucky takes the longest, most winding and paranoid route he can think of home and when he gets back he does as thorough of a check on his apartment as he can manage considering there are clothes and dishes scattered everywhere. By the time he's satisified there are no cameras or listening devices anywhere, his apartment looks like a literal typhoon crashed through it.

Bucky sits down on his sagging couch in the middle of his disaster of a living room and lets it sink in.

He doesn't know what to believe. Whether that bitch was telling the truth or not, she's HYDRA. And that means...

No, his brain tries to shy from the very thought, but Bucky forces it through to the conclusion anyway:

If she really is HYDRA. If she's connected to Steve in any way, then the likelihood of Steve being HYDRA just shot up exponentially, too. Even though he swore he wasn't. But he works for SHIELD, a known HYDRA entity. He told Bucky that to his face, and then Bucky just believed him when he said he wasn't one of them. Jesus, it must have been like taking candy from a baby.

Which means his deception goes even deeper than Bucky thought. Maybe that really was Steve's little HYDRA girlfriend, or maybe he went missing on them, too - doesn't matter. Bucky'd be a fool to not notice all the blaring red warning signs. He has two HYDRA agents circling around him; they're after him then, wanting to retrieve their experiment, tie up loose ends.

It should make Bucky feel scared and angry, but mostly he just feels empty. He doesn't have the energy to fight back. He stands up from the couch and goes into his bedroom, crawling into bed for lack of anything better to do and gives in to the dread.

He feels unmoored, spinning through empty space with nothing to hold onto. It's not just the revelation that Steve was playing him, that Steve is probably HYDRA, though that's the fresh snow that triggers the avalanche: when he looks around, Bucky can't find anything to hang onto. Worse, he can't find anything worth hanging onto; it's like the compass that directs Bucky's life not only won't point North but that the needle snapped off entirely and with it, the very spark that made life meaningful in any way has finally, after all this time, completely sputtered out.

His thoughts slip easily down an older road, abandoned but still well-worn, toward a different kind of freedom.

The knives in his apartment grin at him with sharp teeth; the little handgun Bucky bought to protect himself gleams with a new, dual purpose. He holds these thoughts the same way he had in captivity, as a sharp knife to cut himself on, as a soothing lover to reach for in the dark.

Maybe I should let them find me. At least with HYDRA things were simple.

The thought comes out of nowhere, and it's so appalling that Bucky actually lifts up his head and looks around as though he can pinpoint an external actor.

"What the fuck," Bucky says out loud to no one at all.

But it's not outside him: Bucky knows the source of it. Even as the idea repels him he feels the longing for what it is, even if the thing he longs for is hateful.

HYDRA was simple.

He doesn't actually want to go back, but he never questioned what the end goal was then: survive, fight back, escape - and when things got so bad he couldn't take it, Bucky just collapsed in on himself and went away.

Here, now, he has to make the continuous choice to stay alive in a way that wasn't required of him in captivity. And in some ways, that's worse.

The only good thing about the awful thought is that it knocks Bucky out of his spiral long enough to act.

He stumbles out of bed, gathering two of his favourite knives from the blankets where he sleeps with them like malevolent teddy bears, and slips them back into his boots, followed by the handgun into the waist of his jeans.

Bucky bursts out of his apartment and descends the stairs and emerges out into the cool night air, breathing in the city smog like it's nectar with no real plan in mind, but knowing he has to do something.

No matter what his crazy brain tells him, he can't go back. Not ever, not if it kills him.

Bucky can't do much of anything whether or not HYDRA really is coming for him without money. He needs money for food, needs to make rent if that's even still a thing that's happening. Probably homelessness would make him more vulnerable than he already is, Bucky reasons.

So he'll go get rent. 

Chapter Text

Steve wakes up sick and shivering. The blankets are too thin and someone must have left the window open; his head is pounding and he's weak from whatever latest bout of illness he's recovering from.

No.

That's not right.

He doesn't get sick anymore. Not since the serum. So why's he feel -

Steve's eyes snap open the same second he remembers the base in Arkansas. That weird sublevel. The walls slamming down to create a cage full of gas: the last thing he remembers.

Bright light shines down on him overhead, cold air blasting from vents in the ceiling.

A distinctly medical odor colors the world around him: bleach and hand sanitizer, layered over the unmistakable scents of rubber and human waste. It reminds Steve of a different life, but returning situational awareness forcefully rips that illusion away.

Steve is lying on a metal table, naked save for a series of massive restraints around his ankles, hips, wrists and neck; they’re made of some type of metal, large and bar-like across his middle, huge and cumbersome across his wrists and calves. The one around his midriff chafes against his recent burns, telling him he can’t have spent long enough wherever he is to have fully healed from the situation with the enhanced woman in the swamp.

Steve coughs and peers blearily at the unfamiliar surroundings; he is inside a large white room with a dark one-way mirror to his left; the room is full of what looks like medical equipment from what Steve can see and recognize from this limited angle.

Behind his head is an ECG machine beeping in shrill little intervals. An IV bag hangs above his right on a rolling stand, the catheter secured to Steve's forearm with a piece of tape, steadily dropping something into his system that might be the reason he still feels ill and weak and fuzzy. What looks like an overgrown copy machine lurks in the corner farthest from his visible range, and locked metal cabinets line the walls behind him.

The ECG machine is letting off an increasingly quick staccato that coincides exactly with Steve's heart rate. When he tilts his chin down as far as it will go and strains his eyes downward, he can just barely see another IV catheter inserted under the skin there too, this one ending in an empty port. He can easily guess as to its purpose, with the dark stain of old blood lingering in the port’s dangling tube. Even without the lightheadedness to corroborate it, he has to assume that wherever he is, whoever has him captive here has been collecting the first and most obvious thing of value that his unconscious body can provide: no doubt there are now bags and bags of refrigerated superserum blood somewhere in this... building, facility, wherever this is.

A faint ache in Steve’s lower back suggests that some spinal tissue has been extracted as well at some point, and god knows what else.

It's only the knowledge that Bruce already spent years trying to deconstruct the serum in both their veins with very little success that provides Steve with any inkling of reassurance about that now.

Steve pulls against the restraints, making a token effort to test what he already knows with sinking certainty has somehow been designed to withstand even his strength; he turns his head to look at the viewing window. He can see his reflection in it, and also get a good look at his body lengthwise; the restraints around his wrists nearly cover his entire forearm; the lower half of his calves are swallowed by the metal surrounding his ankles; the ones around his midsection and neck are thinner, but only slightly. He pulls on them again, harder this time, and finds he can't even summon the strength to properly test them.

There is a flurry of movement from somewhere outside the room. A moment later a woman in a white lab coat and clipboard enters through a reinforced door. Her brown hair is swept back into a neat bun, and absurdly, there's a blood red bow perched atop the hair tie there. Over her face is a blue medical mask, but Steve can still see that she's somewhere in her late thirties or early forties behind it, with hazel eyes that regard him coolly, an impenetrable distance in them.

"Subject two eight nine six is awake," the woman says in a clipped tone, no doubt speaking for the benefit of whoever is watching them through the one way mirror or the cameras he can see installed in at least two corners of the room. "The time is eighteen oh four." She makes a note on the clipboard before setting it down.

"What the hell is this?" Steve tries to snarl, but it comes out weaker than he meant it to, a hoarse near-whisper.

"Subject has fully regained consciousness," she reports in the same clinical tone.

"Where am I?" It hurts to speak.

"Subject two eight nine six, you are not to speak unless spoken to," the woman says, sounding rehearsed. "Compliance will be rewarded. Disobedience will be punished. Nod if you understand." Her voice lilts up into a perfunctory not-quite-question near the end. The fluorescent white lights glaring behind her from his perspective make looking up at her almost unbearable. Steve lolls his head away, using the scant inch the collar around his neck allows to move as far away from her as possible.

"What is this place?" He says, a little louder this time. His voice sounds and feels like gravel, whatever toxin was in that gas that put him out having burnt his throat, but it's steady.

There is a sudden shock of buzzing pain from the area of the restraints and Steve gasps, mostly in surprise.

"Nod if you understand," she repeats icily. Steve clenches his jaw and stares straight ahead at nothing, expecting the next shock when it comes.

The woman - scientist, whatever she is - seems to give up on him for the moment, attaching a plastic cuff carefully around his right arm, taking care not to place her hands at any time between Steve's arm and the table he's laying on, he notes with frustration, prepared to crush her fingers with a sudden flex of muscle if she makes that mistake. The restraints hold his arms far away enough from his body that he can't pin a wayward hand that way, either. Instead the scientist guides the plastic cuff gingerly until she succeeds in securing it around his bicep, and uses a small air pump to inflate it; Steve watches as she takes his blood pressure impassively, recording whatever she finds in her notes.

"Why are you doing this," Steve tries, feeling that he already knows the answer, and immediately the shock of electricity stings him once again.

"Hm," the scientist murmurs, her attention on the blood pressure cuff and rising ECG readings, and she jots down another note on her clipboard.

So it's not her controlling that shock thing, probably. Steve turns to the window where no doubt his captors are viewing him with the controls to whatever this torture device is in a soundproof little room, safe from his serum-powered body and his judgmental gaze.

"I know you're watching," he says hoarsely, glaring anyway. "And I want you to know that I'm not going to comply with whatever this is.

"My friends are gonna find you. If you let me go now maybe I'll put in a good word for you at the trial." It's a very weak attempt at a barter with an unknown audience if Steve's ever heard one, but he has to try. Natasha would kill him if he didn't. Natasha, if she were here, would know what to do. Steve tries not to think that thought too despairingly.

Steve's not expecting a response to that, but he's also not expecting the scientist lady to yank off the blood pressure cuff and step back with a gesture to the viewing window just as a wave of electricity courses through him.

The voltage on this one is much higher than the others, and it doesn't stop for an endless unknown moment.

Steve arches off the table. He turns the scream that tries to escape his throat into a muffled grunt of pain, trapped behind clenched teeth. Lightning shoots through his nerves and guts and across recently burnt skin; the healing burns flare with renewed agony and the restraints receive an impromptu test of the full force of Steve’s strength as he wrenches and twists haplessly against the onslaught. The pain is bright and hot and all-consuming, commanding all of his attention.

When it’s done he slumps back onto the table gasping. He can smell his own burnt skin, the areas where each metal restraint sits radiating pain, the twice-burnt skin along his front so raw that Steve wonders if it'll actually manage to scar this time.

"Compliance will be rewarded. Disobedience will be punished," the woman repeats in the same bored, rehearsed voice. "Nod if you understand."

Thoughts of Natasha and what she'd do in this situation are welcome now as Steve leans into his training, head lolling on neck muscles like jelly.

"Steve Rogers... Captain... five four nine eight... five four seven zero," he huffs, reminded of another table in Azzano and if his friends, Dum Dum and Gabe and Frenchie. The Howlies. "Steve Rogers: Captain: five four nine eight - "

He thinks about Bucky just as the world goes up in another flare of white flame.

--

Brock Rumlow, for all his faults, is at least two things: predictable, and egotistical. All it takes is for Bucky to do a few steps of their usual dance, and Brock bites like a fish on a line.

Bucky: Hey

Brock: Whay the fuck do you want

Bucky: To kiss you on the lips. What the fuck do you think i want

Brock: Oh my god

Brock: You remember what your pal did dont you

Brock: 4 broken ribs an a concussion ring any bells??

Bucky: Listen im sorry alright? I didnt know that guy or what he would do to you

Brock: Whatever.

Bucky: I need rent

Brock: Unbelievable.

Bucky: Cmon

Bucky: Please

Bucky: Anything you want

Brock: I knew yoid come crawling back like the sniveling piece of shit you are

Brock: Yeah i guess you can suck my dick since you missed it so much

Their dynamic is easy to fall back into, and it scratches an itch rekindled by the self loathing crawling under Bucky's skin lately.

Brock's always been one of Bucky's worst and simultaneously most familiar clients. The idea of seeing him now is appealing even or especially after everything that happened in that alley - like it's erasing Steve, and everything that came with him. Like seeing Brock is a switch that will reset everything back to normal.

Thirty five minutes later Bucky's at Brock's apartment building with its expensive looking stone facade. Bucky enters the building code into the keypad at the front door and lets himself in since Brock usually won't hear it if he buzzes anyway.

There's an elevator in this building - a functioning one, no less, so Bucky takes it up to the third floor and steps out into the hallway filled with smoke. Brock's floor is filled with the thudding of loud music. Bucky stops in front of the source of the noise and knocks, then texts Brock after knocking produces no results. He waits around until the door jerks open, heavy bass getting exponentially louder as Brock throws the door wide and stands there in a tank top and basketball shorts. He's holding a gun in his right hand. Bucky stiffens slightly but tries to convey an air of ease; Brock's always needed a lot of assurance of his power over others, and once he gets it he usually calms down.

"Heya Brock," he says lightly.

"Get in," Brock grunts, gesturing with the gun loose in his hand, and Bucky squeezes past him into the dimly lit living space.

Brock lives in a bachelor pad that's much bigger and nicer than Bucky's own single bedroom apartment, but you'd hardly know it from the way the guy lives. The lighting is low, coloured LED strips giving the place an indirect blue glow from the recesses in the ceiling; the music pounds, overwhelming now, and beer bottles litter every surface. Bucky's eyes fall on the white powder and security guard ID card sitting next to each other in front of Brock's favourite spot on the couch. He looks over the man with a critical eye.

Brock's followed Bucky into the living room, his face flushed and pupils blown. The blue light of the LED lights reflect off the line of sweat on his bare shoulders and upper lip. There's no question the man is high.

"Money first," Bucky near shouts over the music, holding out his hand impatiently.

"Aw, sweetheart," Brock calls back, "Think you owe me a freebee. My ribs are still healing." Brock gestures down his torso.

"I'm not running a charity over here," Bucky snaps.

"Alright, alright," Brock waves both arms in a 'down' motion, chin down and eyebrows raised; "Down, kitty; here - "

He retreats a few steps and produces a wad of bills from his pocket, setting them down on the kitchen table behind him.

"I promise to give it to you after you've been good," Brock says with a jaunty grin. His eyes are cold, though, and his hand holding the gun loosely until now finds Bucky as he says it. For the first time since he got here tonight Bucky feels genuinely unsettled.

"What do you want, Brock?" He says, feigning annoyance when his heartbeat kicks up a notch.

"Think of it as a bargain bundle for damages sustained," Brock calls across to him with a wry little smile, gesturing from the money towards the couch with the weapon.

Brock moves around the coffee table himself to fall back onto the cushions, sprawling, knees spread for the obvious, and Bucky kneels and shuffles forward into the negative space obediently, reaching for Brock's waistband.

"Ah-ah!" Brock stops him with the cold muzzle of the gun against his neck and Bucky stills. "That's not what I want," Brock breathes, close enough now to hear him clearly over the music.

Bucky feels another prickle of fear. This isn't how it usually goes.

The gun trails up his neck and across his cheek to brush against his lips. Bucky sits unmoving, frozen as his brain tries to catch up, and feels the metal nudge against his mouth impatiently.

"You said anything I want," Brock reminds him, and his tone is menacing.

Fuck, Bucky forgot what a dick Brock is sometimes. Not just a dick, but violent and unstable, too. When Brock gets like this, especially when he's high, he's capable of criminally stupid shit. Bucky wouldn't put it past the man to do anything when he's high as a kite and feeling mean and petty, and it's with that thought that he parts his lips around the muzzle of the gun.

The shape of the barrel is wide and awkward and unforgiving; it tastes like gun oil and metal as it slides hard across his tongue. Brock shoves it forward, making it clack against his teeth, and Bucky jerks back instinctively before remembering himself and widening his jaw instead. He starts to fellate it, his mouth moving over the object how Brock obviously wants, and he looks up worriedly at Brock to find the man staring down at him with blatant hatred burning in his eyes. He looks mad, feverish like this, the blue light illuminating the hollows of his eyes and making his features ghoulish and skeletal. As he grins down at him Bucky becomes aware of how real this all is.

Until this moment Bucky was certain this was a show, just Brock's way of toying with him, of making himself feel better after what happened in that alley, but the coldness in his face says otherwise - apparently, Brock's not as ready to forgive and forget as Bucky assumed.

Brock's other hand comes around behind him and grabs Bucky's hair in a painfully tight grip, keeping him from moving away, and with a surge of genuine panic Bucky throws himself into the task of fellating the gun like his life depends on it, because maybe it does.

He moves his mouth over the hard muzzle, trying to keep as much eye contact as possible with Brock to gauge where the hell the other man's head is at on a second-by-second basis, when he hears the click of the safety being turned off.

Without thinking Bucky's fist is moving, punching out blindly as he reels back and twists for all he's worth. His knuckles connect with bone; Bucky hears a grunt and a sickening crack just as Brock's grip in his hair loosens, and a moment later the deafening bang of a gunshot goes off right next to his ear.

Bucky grapples for the gun in Brock's hand as Brock leaps forward off the couch and lands down on top of him, uppercutting Bucky in the jaw with his left hand; Bucky recovers fast and snaps his head forward to smash their foreheads together, and while the man over top of him is disoriented, Bucky rolls them and reaches once again for the gun. Instead of letting him have it, Brock throws it wide, landing it out of reach of both of them. When Bucky moves to go after it, Brock's legs wrap around his waist and he throws Bucky onto his back with his weight.

The landing stuns him, all the air rushing out of his lungs and momentarily winding him, and Brock takes the opportunity to wail on him. Bucky throws his arm up to defend his face and catches a punch or two in the gut and around the head before he reorients himself and uses Brock's legs still twisted around his abdomen to roll them again. Before Brock can do anything else, Bucky springs to his feet.

The other man is right behind him, and without a moment's hesitation Bucky feints left, letting Brock think he's going for the gun, pulling back at the last moment and switching his weight to his right, letting the punch meant for him sail through empty air, unbalancing the other man.

Bucky's behind Brock in a flash; he wraps his only arm around Brock's neck and hangs on for dear life; Brock reaches behind him and grips Bucky's hair, tearing at it, and Bucky switches his grip to reach around Brock's chest and sends Brock sailing onto his back over Bucky's head, slamming him down onto the floor behind him.

He uses the time to grab the gun off of the floor and points it at Brock, hair everywhere, heaving. Brock looks at him with equal amounts hatred and bitter defeat, waiting for Bucky's next move.

Bucky doesn't take more than a second to decide; he steps back over to the kitchen table with his money still on it and scoops it up with his right hand still holding the gun, keeping it pointed steady and true the entire time. He has to maneuver all the way behind the table to manage it, but then he steps around it again with both his money and the gun in hand.

"You never bother me again," he shouts over the music still booming all around them. He wonders if the neighbours heard the gunshot or if it was too loud even for that. Brock nods slowly from the floor, his cheekbone dripping blood down the side of his face where he holds it with red-slicked fingers.

"If I ever see you again I'll kill you," Bucky promises, shaking the gun for emphasis, and he finds that he means it. Brock, eyes wide and breathing hard too, seems to realize this too and nods again.

Satisfied that they have an understanding, Bucky backs over to the back door of the bachelor pad and steps out onto the fire escape.

He's down all three flights of stairs and out onto the street below before he has time to interrogate the fact that mid-way through that fight Bucky had known with absolute, unshakable certainty down to his very bones that he has done all that before.

--

Bucky walks quickly under streetlights that feel like giant eyes boring down at him as his own flick frantically left and right, from the cement sidewalk to the streetlights to the brownstone buildings: for a moment Brooklyn looks as foreign and menacing as any other place he could ever imagine.

The crack of Brock's cheekbone under Bucky's knuckles reverberates through him like the aftershocks of an earthquake. His left shoulder twitches with the ghostly convulsions of phantom punches remembered, choreography embedded in muscle memory and revealed by the struggle with Brock.

There were fights, Bucky thinks wildly, while he was with HYDRA. Back when he still had both arms. They erased the memories but his body holds onto the knowledge and gives it back to Bucky in pieces now.

(Crack!)

(Brock's cheekbone caving under his knuckles, more fragile than he expected, the skin splitting under Bucky's hand – )

(Crack!)

(Red: the way his knuckles felt, slick with it, beating more than a few of them to a bloody pulp; he's honestly not sure if some of them died, and isn't that just another thought to haunt his nightmares – )

Bucky ducks into an alleyway to steady himself. The smell of rotting garbage fills his nose and he’s overcome with a feeling of wild self disgust so sharp he feels nauseous with it.

There are people, fuzzy in his memory - Bucky's got no idea who they were, if they were soldiers like him or random civilians with the bad luck to get scooped up by HYDRA or something else entirely - but he remembers fighting with them.

He stands in the darkness next to leaking garbage bags and breathes, knowing how to get through this. He just has to wait. It will pass, he knows it will, but that doesn't make enduring it any less staggeringly painful.

Bucky spits the taste of gun oil out of his mouth, runs his tongue behind his teeth and sees Brock's face in his mind's eye, hears the crunch of bone again -

(Crack!)

(They bring them into an enclosure ringed by a mesh netting that Bucky knows not to touch if he wants to avoid getting shocked near unconscious. They will bring his next opponent in when they are ready, and he will fight, because he always does what they want him to. He's given up trying to fight them and just does it the first time now.

He can sense more than see the scientists and doctors surrounding him, standing outside the netting and frowning down at machines, scribbling onto pads of paper and checking, checking, always checking things. Something;s attached to his body: patches, electrodes of some kind. He can see a blue circle stuck on his right forearm. It's still covered in bright red speckles of blood from the last fight. He has been instructed not to remove them under any circumstances.)

Bucky wrenches himself away from the alleyway to resume walking, fast, away from the smell of garbage and the terrible memories.

The blue electrode spattered in blood is stronger than his actual sighted vision as Bucky looks down at his arm, still covered in sensors in his mind's eye. He thinks he might remember snapping someone's bone with nothing but this hand.

How is that possible?

...And all of it begs another, larger question.

What were those machines recording? What were the scientists writing down? What were they looking for in him? Did they find it?

It's the first time the question has occurred to him fully formed, but now that it has it seems like the most obvious, the only question to ask. Why had he been kept there, down in SHIELD/HYDRA's labs? Tests obviously, but what kind?

Bucky doesn't remember a lot of it, and he knows that was by design. What he does remember is so riddled with horrifying events he can scarcely look at it, let alone wonder about his captor's motives, yet for the first time since he got out, he does.

It was a military trial, at least that was the original premise, and Bucky thinks that despite everything else there might have been a grain of truth to that: one last final paper trail before he went missing that would have satisfied anyone higher up who went digging for answers if there were ever a bothersome investigation. Proof he agreed to something classified.

And if that's true, then other truths naturally follow: that the military would have had certain objectives, like creating stronger, more resilient soldiers. Bucky vaguely thinks of their beloved mascot, Captain America, and about what he learned about him from history textbooks in high school: the only successful supersoldier until he died in 1945. Proof it's possible, so they would have had the incentive to try and recreate the experiment.

It would explain a lot of the... horrific treatment, as well. If Bucky was just a science project to them to build soldiers who could slice and burn and break and heal up just fine, it explains a lot of the gratuitous slicing and burning and breaking. They weren't just heartless monsters: they believed they were on a mission for science. The worst kind.

There's other things, too: pieces of a larger puzzle, like how good Bucky is at escaping holds, for instance: they'd needed three attendants to hold him there at the end, when he did decide to try and break their grip. Brock discovered that talent of his the hard way, multiple times. Is that unusual? He doesn’t know.

And then there's how quickly those bruises faded after that fight in the alley; it had been just a day or two, as it will be for these new ones too. Bucky thinks maybe that's not normal and he forgot; they used to bruise and break his bones like it was practically routine in captivity, and he had no way to measure time, but he does recall thinking he healed weirdly fast after a while. He's not superhuman, at least he doesn't think so - he's not so fast or strong that Brock and his pals couldn't have fucked him up pretty good if they had tried - but if it had been just one of them? Even down an arm and out of fighting shape, Bucky's certain he could have taken any one of them alone. And that leads him back to his current train of thought: what if whatever they did to him...changed him? And Bucky just hadn't noticed because he had lost all sense of normalcy, including what was a normal body's capacity?

It's an insane thought to be having, and Bucky definitely feels crazy just for entertaining it, but - but.

What if?

There might be an easy way to test his theory.

...And make some money.

--

The Doghouse is a bar that Bucky's known about for a long time, but rarely has any cause to visit. The patrons of this place are not especially responsive to Bucky's usual reason for hanging around, mainly because there is another, much bigger attraction commandeering their attention, namely: pit fighting.

Below the bar, very illegally, is a large arena filled with a dirt pit in the center, where amateur and pro wrestling matches take place surrounded by a crowd of would-be wrestlers, fans, gambling addicts and people who just like to get drunk and watch other people get covered in dirt and fight.

The real prize for many of the more seasoned fighters, Bucky knows, is the not-so-secret pipeline from this place to WWE. But that's not why he's here; Bucky makes his way down the stairs in the back, the bartender lazily waving him through an "Employees Only" door, and enters a separate realm.

The fighting pit is sunk into the center of an enormous room with a high utilitarian ceiling, exposed piping and metal support beams; three hundred sixty degree audience bleachers wrap around the pit like a smaller, darker, less glamorous colloseum, providing plenty of open seats from every angle. Cigarette smoke fills the substructure and obscures a couple of ancient No Smoking signs to the point of plausible deniability.

Bucky hangs back for a while and watches a couple of the ongoing matches, calculating.

The two wrestlers currently in the pit are nearly naked, stripped down to what looks like underwear but sturdier. They are otherwise covered head to toe in a layer of the red dirt beneath their feet, circling each other. One of them lunges and grabs his opponent’s upper left arm with one hand while bracing his right shoulder against his stomach and somersaults him forward all the way onto his back. The dirt softens the fall, and the audience cheers and jeers in response. A referee circling them whistles the end of the match, and an announcer in a booth midway up the stands excitedly reports what everyone just saw through a speaker system that reverberates throughout the makeshift stadium.

"Aaaand Real Ideal does a full takedown of Intrendsiar, earning him two more points for the second period!" The crowd shouts its approval as the two fighters get back up for another round.

Once Bucky gets comfortable he slips around the bleachers to the back of the enormous room, to an area set off to the side with what looks like a ticket booth and a hallway leading to some gym lockers.

The guy sitting at the booth behind a wall of scratched plexiglass looks up from his phone when he approaches.

"What's your bet?" He asks, sounding annoyed at the interruption.

"Uh. No bet. I want to sign up."

The guy gives Bucky a more alert once over and then a look of utter incredulity.

"Oh-kay," he says skeptically. "That'll be sixty dollars to enter for the amateur category."

Bucky wants to curse - of course they charge you just for the honor of trying, this is New York, nothing is free - but instead he produces what measly cash he has on him from Brock and hands over three twenties wordlessly, scowling.

"What do you want your name to be?" The guy in the ticket booth shouts through the plexiglass just as a cheer erupts behind them; the same wrestler from before has just executed another takedown.

"What?" Bucky yells, pretty sure he heard but not understanding.

"Your name! What's your wrestling pseudonym?"

"Uh." Bucky doesn't know; he hadn't thought about this beyond a harebrained idea to test his other harebrained idea and a vague will to obtain money before the first of October. "What do you suggest?" He asks wildly, feeling stupid, and the guy looks at him disgustedly. His eyes flick over to Bucky's empty side.

"How about Gimpy?" He says, leaning over the paper he's filling out with his pen hovering like he's about to write it down either way. Bucky gives him his iciest glare.

"How about the The Fist," he counters angrily, and the guy rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay; amateur." He says the category like an insult as he checks off a box. "You're up after this crew is done, with the other newbies; Amateur Hour starts at nine. Locker room's back there. Rules of the match are posted on signs along the wall. Bandages and ice cost extra. You can have a mouth guard for free, though." The you'll need it is implied. Bucky fishes one of the aforementioned mouthguards out of a jar he now notices to his right - no points for hygiene - as his hand touches several other pieces in the process.

Dismissed, Bucky wanders down the smoky hall to the aforementioned locker room. The general aesthetic seems to be red, black, white and grey: grimy white walls smeared with streaks and hand prints of the red dirt from the pit, grey lockers, black floors and red trim for the sparse utilities; Bucky kind of likes it. It suits whatever dull ache is happening inside his chest, anyway.

He goes back up outside for a smoke - not out of respect for the building rules, but just to get some air - and comes back to wait his turn in the coming hours.

Bucky finds one of the signs the guy in the booth mentioned and reads the rules: they're basic wrestling rules, explaining the goal to win by pinning the opponent’s shoulders to the ground or by leading with points; a fifteen point leads to a technical fall or a victory and the end of the match.

Bucky eyes the list of illegal moves carefully and mentally makes a note to himself to reserve the full extent of his fighting repertoire; he really does not need to be forgetting himself and accidentally gouging anyone's eyes out. He's not here to fight like he used to, Bucky reminds his nerves. He's here to test a wild theory and make some cash.

He watches the next few matches from the back of the bleachers with a keen eye, imagining adapting some of the moves he sees to suit a one-armed fighting style. That'll be his advantage at first if he has one, he knows: they'll underestimate him.

The moves feel more familiar just watching them. The setting eases some of the vague prickling discomfort caused by said familiarity; the smell of the cigarette smoke settles him. As far as low-income laboratories to test his theory go, Bucky's not likely to find much better than this without actual needles poking and prodding in the mix, which - no.

It becomes evident after several matches however that the supposed rules, much like the No Smoking sign, are mostly for show. One of the competitors bites his opponent and no promised penalty is applied, and almost every match Bucky sees seems to end out in a rough knockdown of one kind or another, rather than a careful calculation of points. The audience, he gathers, will settle for nothing less than the bloodthirsty entertainment only an illicit venue like this can provide.

"You going up later?" An unfamiliar voice asks, and Bucky turns sharply to find its source.

"Woah! Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you - you just look like someone who's thinking about more than his bet winnings is all."

Bucky doesn't say anything, unsure in this strange environment who is trustworthy and who is not. The man standing next to him is practically a youth, small but wiry; he's black, with curly black hair cut short on the sides and left longer on top, with a wide nose and expressive eyebrows. He's wearing street clothes in a style that Bucky sees on young people around the city all the time; they don't normally interact with him though.

The silence stretches uncomfortably long and the kid backs off.

"Okaaay; I can see you don't wanna talk. I'll leave you to it then. Good luck." And then he's gone, leaving Bucky to ponder his utter lack of social skills.

After that interaction Bucky hangs around just waiting for the amateur matches to begin. Eventually ten o'clock rolls around, and the referee whistles while the announcer helpfully announces the end of the current matches and instructs the amateur category to gather in the pit.

There's a buzz in the air as the intense concentration of the seasoned wrestling matches dissipates and conversation roars to a peak in the aftermath. A large portion of the audience disperses; a small new contingent arrives and others reassemble in new configurations for the upcoming entertainment.

Bucky joins the other amateur wrestlers down in the pit with the referee. He wonders how many of the dozen or so gathered are here for the first time like him; it seems from a glance around that many of them look comfortable and confident. Perhaps 'amateur' is really just a category they stick you in for as long as it takes to prove your salt.

The referee is a wiry middle aged Indian man with a bristling salt and pepper mustache and no beard; he's wearing a backwards baseball cap and a hoodie and sweatpants, all black, and his face is set in something of a permanent scowl.

"Alright, listen up!" He says in a heavy accent. "My name is Amit, but you will call me Ref." He gestures to the twelve amateur wrestlers who have signed up for tonight. "Now: I assume you all know the basic rules and what you're getting yourselves into. Rules to remember are: don't stall, try not to do anything permanent, and by Hanuman don't put anyone in head scissors, you understand? Prize for winning amateur tonight is two fifty. Any questions?" None of them answer, so Ref continues:

"Good. Head to the locker rooms to shower, then come back here to dirt up before your matches begin." He waves them off with an air of disdain.

Bucky has seen enough of the other matches to know by now that every match begins with the competitors "dirting up" first, AKA coming straight from the showers or - in the case of the consummate professionals - having someone on hand to spray them down with a fine mist of water so that they can slather themselves with the red clay from the pit if they’re not already sweaty. It seems weird to Bucky, but he has to confess it does add a layer of drama to the whole thing. He supposes he's about to find out if that's the whole point or not.

The amateur wrestlers move as one to the locker room. It feels foreign to move together in a group with other people, Bucky notes distantly.

The shower stalls are lined along the wall, and there's plenty of them; they all rinse off, and none of them put their clothes back on save for their boxers. A few of them wear the same style of underwear Bucky saw in the pit worn by the more seasoned wrestlers, though most seem content to start their first rounds in regular boxers, he’s relieved to see.

When they arrive back at the pit, Bucky can feel eyes on him, staring at his missing left arm and the scars on his entire body, and he hastens to join the others in packing clay all over himself.

He’s surprised to find how calming it is. The dirt must be some kind of clay, sticking well to his wet skin wherever he applies it, surprisingly soft. It smells like lemon and something earthy and spicy, and it soothes some animal part of his brain.

The amateurs find seats along the borders of the pit as the first two competitors are called.

“Wrangler and Clash!” The announcer calls over the loudspeaker. Two of the amateur competitors step into the pit and face each other. The first one – Wrangler – is a bald black man with muscles that look like they see the gym every day; he looks focused as he faces his opponent, Clash, a smaller but impressively wiry white man with a beard who shakes his hand with a jittery air.

Ref steps to the side between them, holding out a hand as if to block them from one another if he were standing a little closer, and then blows his whistle and steps back. Just like that the first match begins.

Bucky watches the two wrestlers circle each other, each immediately receiving a penalty for 'stalling,' failing to engage immediately in the fight; the whistle blows and they try again.

On the second go they both dive right in, overcompensating for the slow start, and the results are chaotic. The crowd, predictably, eats it right up.

Wrangler flies at Clash to tackle him and Clash dodges, circling around him whip-fast to trip up Wrangler’s feet and almost sending him sprawling, but Wrangler catches himself in time, only to find the other man fallen on top of him, trying to bring him to the ground or twist him onto his back. Wrangler resists being grounded and, with a clever twist of his ankle, slips out of Clash’s grip while he’s unbalanced, sending the other man tripping back to his feet while Ref calls out,

“Escape! One!” He holds up one finger to show the point that goes to Wrangler for escaping Clash’s hold and the match goes on, with neither wrestler successfully pinning the other.

When the time for the first period is called by a sharp shriek of the whistle, it feels like much longer than two minutes.

Three more paired matches go by before Bucky is called up, and by the time his name is announced he’s so wound up it’s almost a relief just to get it over with.

"Ivan and... The Fist!"

Bucky winces. Too late to change that stupid moniker now, he supposes.

Bucky shakes hands with his opponent – a built Philippino guy in maybe his fifties, tattooed and looking confident – and then Bucky puts the mouthguard in and has a moment of pure panic.

There isn't time to react before the whistle blows and there's a body coming towards him.

Bucky dodges instinctively, a well-honed reflex he can rely on even as he spits out the infernal plastic guard and grabs at Ivan’s arms circling around his waist.

He’s able to rip the man’s grip away and skitter to the side, away from the fight, and Ref blows the whistle.

“Stalling! Minus one!” he calls, calling the penalty, and Bucky huffs in frustration. His instincts telling him to get away from any kind of physical fight are too strong.

They start again, and Bucky knows he’s not in the right frame of mind as the whistle blows. He tackles the other wrestler to the ground using brute force, and gets spun around and pinned by both shoulders. The instinct to grab Ivan with his left arm exists uselessly in the back of whatever’s left of Bucky’s fighting mind from before.

Ref’s whistle calls the end of the first period, minus one to two on Ivan’s side.

The second round is over fast: Ivan dives for Bucky's legs and before he knows it he's being tipped over and pinned. The period ends with another short sharp trill and the sound of the crowd booing and cheering respectively.

Bucky shoves the other man off him and gets back to his feet, shaking his head in irritation. He can do this. He thought he could, anyway. But he is at an obvious and serious disadvantage, with only one arm, and he’s been thrown off by a series of small things he could hardly name. He can't figure out how to pin his opponent before he uses his other arm where Bucky can’t defend, scoring a point, and it's humiliating. The fact that he even cares at all rankles almost as much as the spectacle itself.

And he can’t use half of his repertoire because he doesn’t want to actually maim the other man. It’s like trying to debate someone while half the words he normally uses are banned: each reflex must be interrogated before he permits his body to react, causing a momentary hesitation Bucky can’t afford. This is different than what his body remembers and what it wants to do. Not to mention he's down an arm this time, where in all his memories of doing this before Bucky had both.

The final period is thankfully more drawn out, saving some of his pride, but Bucky is hardly surprised when he ends it flat on his back and Ref calls the final score.

Two to eight.

Well. There goes his chance to earn money and figure out anything about maybe-enhancements. Or maybe he just learned everything he needs to know.

Bucky's sitting on a bench in the locker room after, elbow on his right knee staring off into space when he hears footsteps walking into the gym.

"Shitty feeling, isn't it?" The same annoying kid from before pops up at Bucky's elbow.

"What?" Bucky says, feeling tired and dull with defeat. The sounds of the ongoing matches outside continue without him now, a dull roar.

"Losing your first match. It's a shitty feeling. We've all been there, don't worry. Well, most of us. I've only ever seen like, two people win their very first ever match and I think they were both lying about it being their actual first."

"You do this." Bucky gestures broadly around him but the meaning is obvious.

"Yeah. I mud wrestle. Pehlwani, kushti or whatever you want to call it.” Bucky has no idea what the other man is saying. “And that feeling you're having right now?” The kid continues, heedless, “How shitty it feels to give it your best and lose anyway?

“...Now imagine how amazing it must feel to win."

Bucky grunts. "I just lost sixty bucks I need to get back," he says offhandedly, and then he feels a hand on his shoulder. Normally Bucky would have flinched violently away at the unexpected contact, but he's still caked in mud after sparring liberally with a mostly naked opponent and it doesn't have the same effect as it usually would. It almost feels nice to be touched, for once. Human.

"If you give it a chance, you could definitely win that sixty bucks and then some," annoying kid says earnestly. "I saw you out there. You've definitely got what it takes." And, okay. Bucky is going to have to find a new name for him other than Annoying Kid because that just won't do for someone he is feeling a genuine flare of fondness for.

"What's your name?" He asks gruffly.

"It's Miles," he says, his grin huge and sunny, teeth bright against his dark skin as he holds out a hand and Bucky takes it. "Miles Morales."