Bucky's face does this... really weird twist, because, "I crashed in the arctic. I got fucking thawed out because you - "
He feels like the breath's been punched out of him for a minute. He's never really just... sat down and spelled this all out for anybody. Least of all a dead guy.
He pulls in another breath, tries again. "It's 2014. Which I know sounds stupid, but - maybe not as stupid as you'd think," he says, given what Steve just told him. "You died in 1945. In the Alps. We looked for your body, Steve." Hell yes he'd made sure they had, and not just because losing access to the one working sample of Erskine's formula, even frozen, had been unacceptable to the Army. That had just been a convenient way to muster more resources. Even if it had all been in vain. "We never found fucking anything." Everyone had concluded he'd crashed into the icy river, been carried away. Bucky hadn't liked it, but he'd believed it.
Steve goes sheet-white hearing this. Because he can say it all himself, except for who fell. And, sadly, for the resources that hadn't been expended looking for Bucky. He was just a soldier, after all. Steve had begged and pleaded that they needed to at least find his body, but there was no way they were going to risk soldiers freezing for a corpse. And that was what they had been sure Bucky was, at that point. A corpse.
They'd both been wrong.
Steve feels like he has asthma all over again. He can't breathe and he's choking on his own tongue trying to talk as he stares at Bucky who...who is him. It's him in another life where HYDRA never got him. Never tortured him. He's whole and he doesn't care that this means he was probably the one in Bucky's place because his best friend had been spared.
This is what it looks like. Bucky alive and whole and spared.
His eyes are shining as he grips his friend's shoulders, still not quite able to breathe or get color back into his face.
"You fell off the train, Buck. Where...where I came from, you fell off the train. I tried to get to you and...the railing broke. I couldn't... There was nothing anyone could do. They were sure you were dead and they didn't even look for you..."
His head is spinning. He's not sure if it's lack of oxygen, hangover, or everything crashing in on him at once.
It's like looking in the mirror, only... a weird, wrong funhouse mirror, one that shows you exactly what you want to see and don't want to see at the same time. The number of times Bucky had wished it had been him, because he was just a soldier - well. Because they'd thought he'd been just a soldier at the time, because he'd ignored and buried all the signs that maybe he wasn't, and because Steve was just - Steve was everything. Steve was the good guy, Steve was Captain America for a reason. Bucky knows he's not the right guy for the job. He's just the one they'd conveniently picked, and now he's stuck with it. Which is okay, really, because what else does he have? What else could he have, but a slew of dead or dying friends and the memories of a guy he can never quite live up to?
He grabs at Steve to haul him in for a hug, partly because that's just what he needs to do, because Steve needs it, and maybe even because Bucky needs it. And partly so Steve won't see all that in his face, because it's hard to stay so stoic when... this is so messed up.
"I'm as real as I ever was. If you are," he says, quietly. Only a little strangled.
He's holding onto Bucky tighter than he held onto anything in his life. It's almost like the smallest inch could let the other man fade away and Steve isn't about to let that happen. He'd forgotten how easy this could be. How right falling into the normal dynamic could be. It's Bucky. It's his Bucky that he lost on the train. Just like he's the Steve that he'd lost...
Jesus, this was a mess.
"I'm real," he assures him, face buried into his shoulder. "I'm real. I wish to God sometimes I wasn't, especially with this hangover. But not if...not if you're real, too." His hands are fisting up against this suit Bucky is wearing, not letting him go until Steve's 100% sure he's not going to cry. His face already feels alarmingly damp but he'll say that was just water he spilled, earlier.
When he finally retreats, he drags his sleeve across to clean it up, fast.
"God. Look at you. Captain James Buchanan Barnes. Captain America..." He can't help his watery laugh. "Did they make the suit pinch any less for you?"
Yeah, Steve may have tried to play that one off as a joke, but something in Bucky tenses when Steve says he wishes he wasn't. Both because... well, yeah, of course that's the last thing you want to hear your (dead?) best friend say, and because he maybe kind of knows what it's like, to feel that way. There were some not-so-great days - well, all of them were not so great, after Steve fell. A lot of them have been not so great, since he got thawed.
Maybe they're about to get better, because fuck being kidnapped, but if it means Steve's here... Alive -
Bucky takes in a slow breath of his own, proud of the way it doesn't really shudder. He doesn't pull away until Steve does, and if he notices anything on his face... well. He doesn't have to say anything about it, does he.
Of course, he does snort a moment later. "It sounds even worse when you say it," he mutters, because he still doesn't feel like the name fits him right. And the suit - well.
He actually laughs a little, even though it's not funny. "The first one was a little big." That first one being Steve's original combat gear, because there hadn't been time or resources to adjust them. The fit had been close enough - they're roughly the same size, but Bucky's a little slimmer, and while no one else had noticed... he'd noticed every single way that uniform had been meant for Steve, not him. "This one? I guess not." He rotates one shoulder a bit. "Although somehow, it's nice to know it's not just me they've got it in for."
He lets out another breath, takes a closer, longer look at Steve. It's... Steve, that's all there is to it, as simple and as complicated as that may be. "So you're still Cap? Where - when - you're from?"
Steve laughs too. It is cathartic to let out some of his emotions into it. He feels like he's a guitar string pulled so tight that a wrong move will have him splitting off in different directions. The laughter loosens everything up a little even if it has the edge of hysteria to it, in the end.
"Yeah," he finally says, knowing that he hardly looks the part right now with this uniform on and his hair the sort of messy, unkempt style that people liked in the future. It really doesn't matter at the moment, though. Bucky won't care about that. "Yeah, I am still Cap. There's a lot of people here from my time. Nat, Vision, Wanda, Thor, Loki..."
Bucky. Shit.
"I...uh..." Gracelessly, he avoids mentioning that last one. This Bucky will need to know. Just...not now. "I don't know if you know all of them..."
Bucky frowns a little. "Natasha and Thor. Loki." He doesn't sound all that thrilled about that last one. He's kinda not - guy tried to invade Earth, starting with his city.
But he has to shake his head. "The other two, though - no." Still - it doesn't matter how much his home is or isn't like Steve's, really. What matters is, "I'm amazed you made friends with some real live people." He ends up elbowing Steve a little, smiling. If it's a little thin and shaky around the edges... well. Whatever.
And then he glances around this place, because - "Nice art studio, by the way. Although maybe you should get a cot."
He laughs a little more, the ribbing so familiar to him. "I don't normally go out getting drunk like that." Except for the past few days, he doesn't amend. "But I'll think about it. Never know when some other moron is going to need to camp out for a night."
He nudges Bucky back. And it's so much like before. Like no time has passed and, despite all the odds, he got his best friend back, untouched by time. It's not true, of course. Bucky has changed. He's different and older with the same battles under his belt that Steve has. It's like they're the same. In all the new ways, they are the same. And in all the old ways, they're the people they'd always been.
The laughter fades as that nudge instead turns into Steve grabbing and holding Bucky's arm once more. His mouth opens and closes around words that don't want to come out. Things that don't make sense or sound wrong. Or maybe he just doesn't have the voice for all of them, considering how tight his throat has become.
But in the end, what's important makes its way out:
"Don't you." Bucky sounds unconvinced, although of course, he hopes it's true. Sure, getting drunk is fine, and he's got nothing against it. But you definitely can't do that every night. Steve definitely never did, even if he's been his fair share of roaring drunk and Bucky's been the same. So, "Don't look at me. I have a room - somewhere." Because learning his way around is still definitely a thing he's doing - but he's good with layouts, and he's not entirely new to being - well, new. It's happened before. He'll adapt.
But anything else he might have been about to say is immediately overshadowed by the way Steve grabs him, the look on his face - and the way he realizes, looking at Steve's face...
"Hey. I might not be your Bucky," he says, softly - because he's not, how can he be? Steve's Bucky is dead - and Bucky's Steve is dead. This is a different Steve, but still so much the same, and - "but I don't think there's rules." He smiles; it's a little sad, a little tight, but that's just him trying to hold himself together. For Steve. Because that's how it works. Bucky doesn't fall apart, because Steve needs him not to. It's always been that way. He thinks it must have been for this Steve's Bucky, too.
"I missed you, too," he breathes out, letting himself say it, because Steve deserves to hear it, quiet though the words are. They're sincere. "The whole world missed you," he adds, but leaves and all they got was me, instead out of it.
And still, even while that's true, "I like to think I'm still in first place, though."
He fucking missed Steve more than anyone else. Even Peggy.
And that's about all he can take. The familiarity of it all is hitting him right under his ribs where there is no defense. He lost Bucky, got him back, and then lost him all over again. It's been loss after loss after loss and one day he'll tell this Bucky all of it, but for right now Steve just has to get used to the unfamiliar feeling of gaining. Of getting someone back in a way you never thought possible.
It's all he can do to pull Bucky in for another hug, burying his face into his shoulder as his eyes finally overflow. The same, silent sobs he learned in the twenties when boys weren't allowed to cry but he'd been kicked too many times to do anything else. Not that Bucky judged him. He was always safe.
Christ, it is so incredible to feel safe again.
"You're my Bucky," he argues, his voice cracking around the words. It feels a little like betrayal to his real Bucky, here, but God, this is his friend back again. And Bucky was right. There were no real rules, here.
He could be guilty later. Right now he just holds on tighter and tries to stop the tears he hasn't let fall since he was a smaller man.
"And shut up. The world was in good hands, with you. Christ, Buck." He just shuts his eyes, at a complete loss.
"Christ. Just...shut up and let me embarrass myself."
The reaction is automatic - Bucky's hands come up, one wrapping around
Steve's broad shoulders, the other burying careful fingertips in his hair.
He is intimately familiar with this - the way Steve cries - and just as
familiar with the fact that it doesn't happen often. It's making his own
vision go hazy, but his voice is still steady, rock solid like the rest of
him, because Steve might be built like a tank but that doesn't mean Bucky
is just gonna let the world take its potshots at him. He never did, and he
never will. Not when it feels like he's being handed a second chance at
something he failed so utterly, so completely, the first time around.
That's a mistake, a failing, he can never undo. But just because you can't
undo something doesn't mean you give up. It doesn't mean you stop letting
things matter, or stop making a difference.
It doesn't mean you don't cling just as tightly to the guy you lost, as
he's clinging to you.
Bucky laughs a little, though it's a quiet, raw sound. "I mean, I guess
it's good to know I pretty much did exactly what you would do. That's a
sign-off from the boss if ever I got one."
His fingers keep scritching gently at Steve's scalp, letting him stay close
even if he's absolutely not embarrassing himself.
Eventually, into the quiet, Bucky asks, "How long've you been here?"
It's okay if Steve's not ready to answer yet, or if he doesn't want to pull
away to do it. Bucky's not exactly going anywhere.
Steve stays pressed in close, accepting the affectionate touches he'd been without for so long. He laughs a little at that question because it feels as though he's been here forever but in reality, he' one of the newest kids on the block. Aside from Bucky, he guessed.
"Not long. Just a month or two, I think. We had...this thing. Where we were stuck and having to watch people's memories. It messed with my sense of time, honestly. For all I know it's been a week or a year. But I think...I think it's been a month or two."
He finally pulls back and lets his face stay wet with tears. It's not like Bucky wouldn't know otherwise. His eyes are glued to his friend, still not quite believing that this isn't all a dream. But Bucky's hand is warm against the back of his neck so, if it is a dream, it's a vivid one. He'll stay, if it's all the same. He'll stay for a good long while.
"I'm on the Bishop. It's a weird ship," he says with a laugh. "The captain there is a four-armed alien from a warring race. The first officer is from another galaxy and was a general of a huge galactic army. And beside them there is a psychic terrorist, a small kid who used to battle with a key, and...well. There's someone else but I haven't met them." It's not really funny but that doesn't mean he's not going to keep laughing anyways.
Bucky frowns a little, more in confusion than anything, at the explanation.
It does sound like a trip, which is not exactly a good thing.
Especially not if it's airing potential dirty laundry, which he kind of
assumes when he hears "having to watch people's memories." He's definitely
not thinking that means seeing people enjoy happy, carefree childhoods.
Then again, maybe it's just because his and Steve's weren't exactly that,
much of the time. Maybe it's different for most people - and then
Steve starts explaining his ship's crew, and... well, that idea goes right
back out the window. (Airlock?)
Still, his smile a wry. "Well, when you wake up in the future and get told
to stop an army of aliens pouring out of the sky... I guess at least it
puts some of this shit in perspective?"
At least Steve might actually get what that feels like, for better or
worse. But if he does, maybe he'll at least laugh.
Steve's face breaks into a smile. "Holy cow. That happened to you, too. The aliens and...Jesus. It's like you and I just swapped lives." His mother would hit him over the ears for throwing the Lord's name around the way he was, but he couldn't help but feel like it is warranted in this moment. What else does one say when confronted with their long-dead best friend who's been living out his exact life?
He's not letting go of Bucky. Even as he seems to calm down and his tears cease, he's not letting go of Bucky. His hands stay glued to his arms. His shoulders. Anything he can get a hold of and grip. Which reminds him...
His eyes drift to Bucky's left arm. It's flesh and solid, the same as it had been before. Steve's hand trails down to his friend's and traces his fingertips over the roughened skin of Bucky's. No metal. No wounds. No broken joint that Hydra manipulated into his body.
Idly, he wonders if he has that arm, now, where Bucky was from. It's a disturbing thought.
"You and I are experts at kidnapping, if you think about it. Falling asleep and waking up someplace else entirely. But at least SHIELD had better reasons than a show."
Bucky's grin gets a little more bemused. "Yeah, that happened to me, too. I
feel like it happening to one of us is weird enough. Both of us is just...
" He shakes his head, but still - part of him, deep down, feels warmth
kindle at the thought of shared life experiences. Especially experiences
that are so weird that they aren't something you can just explain to
someone who hasn't had them. It makes him feel less alone, in a different
way than finding Steve again, even. Maybe he hopes it makes Steve feel the
same way.
In the meantime, Bucky doesn't mind if Steve stays close. He does cock an
eyebrow as Steve seems to take a particular interest in his left arm,
though - not in the least because he wasn't drunk earlier, so he
remembers Steve specifically mentioning that arm, even if it hadn't made
any sense at the time. It still doesn't, really, only now he stands a
chance of actually getting an answer: "Did your guy lose it? The arm, I
mean."
It seems logical to him, really. Plenty of guys lost limbs in the war.
Maybe the other Bucky did, too. He can't really see it slowing him down,
somehow, which really, is more amusing than anything. At least, he
concentrates on that feeling, rather than the twist in his gut at the
thought of losing an arm - or anything.
Steve just nods, not relinquishing his hold until he's aware it's spanning too long. "Yeah," he confirms. And it's about then that he looks up and realizes that it's luck and luck alone that has kept this Bucky from knowing about the other one here. Any broadcast might have some sort of clue. For all Steve knew he could walk by. And Bucky deserved to know before he saw all of what he could have become.
"Yeah. He...fell off the train and lost his arm. I'm sure you realize now that you had a version of the serum in you, then. So...My Bucky. He fell off the train and lived." Steve inhales and holds it to straighten his spine just a little more. "He's actually here, too. Arrived before me. And his left arm is all machinery."
He doesn't say anything about HYDRA. He can't load all of that onto Bucky and expect him to not crumble underneath the knowledge. This alone is enough for him to come to terms with. Because, Steve is sure that it will open up a new possibility in Bucky's head that he hasn't thought of before:
That, if Steve's Bucky lived, so too might have his Steve.
Bucky first goes a little cold when Steve mentions the serum. Because - yeah. Yeah, he knows. If he's being honest, he'd known since the first night Steve had rescued him from that factory - since before, really, when he'd been drifting in and out of consciousness and wished he were hallucinating what was happening to him, the tests, the results, and yet knowing all of it had been real. He knew the entire rest of the goddamned war, even if he'd been able to keep it to himself all the way up until they'd dug him out of a chunk of ice to find his heart still beating and wondered why. Wondered how. And gone digging.
So yeah. He knows. And so does SHIELD, and he knows it's going to get out eventually. He's been Captain America again. People are going to figure it out. There's already been enough speculation, on websites and news shows because people can watch the footage over and over again and see that he can do more than he should. It wasn't a freak accident that he never died. It was shoddy, secondhand version of the serum that gave Steve everything, and then took it all away.
And now - now Steve is absolutely right. Bucky's brain skips right over the fact that there's another him here - that this Steve still has his best friend, and he's here, and suddenly Bucky feels lie a sham, like an impostor, like a kid desperate to replace the best friend that just moved away with someone else - and it takes the rest of what Steve said and he feels suddenly sick. So sick that his face goes pale, his hand rising to cover his mouth like he might make like Steve and throw up whatever the hell he last ate, because -
Because if this Steve's Bucky could have survived with that shoddy, secondhand serum (and Bucky survived the crash with it, and now he knows Steve could have, too). If that had happened, then how the hell would a fall like that have killed his Steve Rogers.
Fuck. Fuck. He really feels like he's gonna be sick.
"Hey. Bucky. Hey, pal. C'mon...breathe." Steve is moving closer to him, one large hand on the back of his neck and the other pressed against his chest. Steve takes slow, deep breaths on his own to coax Bucky into duplicating him. Monkey see, monkey do, after all. And maybe later he can say that to his friend and get the punch that comparison richly deserves. But not yet. Not until this has passed because, Christ, it's not even the worst the news gets. If anything, this is the good part of the story: your friend lives!
Lives to be tortured for seventy years by HYDRA and made into an assassin. That was going to go over great.
"Breathe," he repeats, eyes focusing on Bucky and trying to see if he's going to need to hurl on the floor as well. "Look. That was my timeline. Even though it seems real similar, there's no guarantee that the same things happened both times. Like. We never looked for you, when you fell. I begged, but they never did. You searching means...maybe I did fall in the river. Maybe I hit a stone wrong. I could have died." Which normally wouldn't be said so hopefully. Life is weird sometimes.
He reaches up with the hand not on Bucky's neck and cups Bucky's cheek.
"You did everything you could. Everything. Hear it from me, alright? I wouldn't blame you. You went above and beyond for me. If I lived, it was by luck. None of this was your fault."
For a second, it sounds like Steve is talking to him from the end of a
very, very long tunnel - probably because Bucky isn't really
breathing, his world narrowing to that one thought, over and over: Steve
could have lived. Steve could have been alive, and they'd stopped
searching, left him for dead -
His body finally seems to register the big, warm hands on his skin; his
lungs inflate, and he doesn't feel a whole lot better, but some of the
color comes back to his face. He looks less like he's going to upchuck all
over Steve's very nice art studio floor.
His eyes finally get some life back in them, as they seek out Steve's,
watching him mutely for a moment. It is wrong, to hear Steve like
that - to hear him suggest ways he might have died. Bucky didn't
want Steve to be dead. With every passing hour, he'd wanted to be
proven wrong. He'd wanted to find not a corpse - and certainly not nothing
- but Steve, maybe a bit banged up, but miraculously, ridiculously,
alive and ribbing him for it.
Steve touches his cheek, and maybe that's when Bucky finally comes back,
fully, into the present. The weird-ass, wacky, fucked-up present and he
both wants to just... go away for a while, and never wants to lose, because
it's Steve, here and now, touching him, and -
He barks out something like a laugh, even if it's too derisive. Too
painful. "If you lived... it doesn't matter what I did. It wasn't enough."
Then his eyes focus a little more, and bore into Steve's, harder. "You
thought it was your fault when your guy - when I - fell. Didn't
you." It's almost less of a question, and more of an accusation.
"That's different," he says instantly even though it's so weirdly and profoundly not that Steve can almost taste his own bullshit as it spills out of his mouth. Not that it stops him. "I was Captain. I chose you to be on that train with me. And I chose you because...you were my friend and I liked fighting next to you. You were there because of me. And you fell because I wasn't fast enough."
And then he'd lived. Steve's, grip tightens around these things Bucky can't know yet. His blood boils and freezes with it in equal measure.
"We didn't even look for you. We just assumed. And then you were back and everything that happened to you was because of the choices I made. So yeah. Yeah, I blamed myself. But it was different."
Peggy had told Steve to allow Bucky his choice. But it had never felt like a choice. He and Bucky were just magnets and where one went the other was pulled. Where was the choice in that?
Steve exhales shakily and pushes their foreheads together.
"I know what you're feeling. But I swear, I don't--wouldn't-- blame you..."
Bucky snorts, because - "That's bullshit. Of course you chose me to be on
that train." Bucky had been there because of Steve... but that's been true
his whole life. He's always followed Steve, had his back - until the one
time he hadn't - and the truth is, "If you hadn't, I would've insisted." No
one else would've been right for that mission. It was why he stayed in the
fucking war, when he could've gone home. No one else was ever gonna watch
Steve's back half as well as Bucky could - until that one time he hadn't.
"Steve, if I didn't like fighting next to you... I don't know how you guys
became friends, but we wouldn't have, if that had ever been the case."
Bucky had met Steve in a back alley brawl as a snot-nosed kid, and
immediately wanted to stand beside him. That desire hasn't changed, not
once in his entire life.
Not even after Steve had died - hell. Maybe died. Probably not died.
Shit.
He shakes his head; this is crazy, it's crazy on both sides, hearing that
it was him and not Steve, it's almost a fucking relief. "Of course
you didn't look for me. I should've been dead, and it would've been a waste
of resources." Bucky takes a deep breath, holds it in for a long moment,
feeling the reality of Steve's skin against his, the hands holding
his arms - and he reaches up to grip Steve's arms, a mirror image, and lets
that breath out, slowly, shakily. "Well. Then I know what you're feeling.
And he doesn't blame you. I wouldn't. I don't."
He reaches up, one hand gripping the back of Steve's neck solidly, trying
to prove it. He knows Steve - he knows Steve isn't really gonna let that
stop him from feeling guilty. But maybe if Bucky repeats it enough. Maybe -
"You said he was here, too?"
Why the hell hasn't he beaten it through Steve's thick skull yet?
Steve hates how his whole body tenses at that question. He should have expected it, after all. And the truth can only be held back so long before Steve's silence on it becomes lying by omission. Besides, he's here. He's here and he's real and there's no telling when they will cross paths. It's not like Steve can even message him to warn him to stay away. He's not even sure if his Bucky would open a message from him.
It's that thought that has him leaning into this Bucky's hands, eyes shutting against this warm, familiar feeling. He has his friend. His friend is here and is talking to him. He can deal with everything else so much better just by not feeling so alone.
"Yeah. He's here."
Steve doesn't know where to start with the mess of what happened to the other James Buchanan. He bites the inside of his cheek, wishing there was a way to make this less awful. But there's just...not.
"Look. Just. Remember that this is my timeline. What I'm saying doesn't.... necessarily mean that it happened to your Steve." But he's sure that he wasted his breath saying that. Bucky's mind will go there. Of course it would.
"He just. Doesn't...really remember me. My Bucky." God, that hurts to say even now. "When he fell off the train, some HYDRA people found him. They messed with his mind and used him for missions. He's free of them, now. But... Yeah. Right now he still doesn't remember much about me." He laughs, humorlessly, trying to defuse the tension but being too affected to do it properly.
"Actually. If you wanna know who wins in a fight between you and me... I got stories, pal."
The way Steve's face just falls before he even opens his mouth to
say a word already has Bucky concerned. Steve's shit at hiding, things,
triply shit at hiding them from Bucky, and whatever he's gonna say... it
isn't gonna be good.
And the first thing out of his mouth - the disclaimer that things
might be different for his Steve? Yeah, not reassuring at all, buddy.
And then it just gets worse. Bucky blinks, trying to parse the words
Steve's speaking, trying to get the meaning from such simple phrases.
Doesn't remember him. HYDRA found him. Messed with his mind and used him
for missions. "What the fuck?" he whispers, almost like he doesn't actually
realize he's saying it out loud. He kind of doesn't. Because what. The
fuck. Fucking HYDRA. Of course.
The thought makes him go cold, like being frozen all over again. The
thought of going through it all again - the torture, the tests, only
worse, and neverending... Bucky's not like Steve. He has a healthy goddamn
fear of things that are terrifying. And that thought is fucking
terrifying.
And then his brain ticks over to the fact that... yeah. All of that might
have happened to Steve. His Steve. If he hadn't died, all of this could
have happened to him, and... wow, how about Bucky just never eats ever
again. That seems like a good solution, because otherwise how is he ever
supposed to keep anything down, knowing that. Knowing -
Steve's attempt a a laugh is maybe what snaps him out of it. Bucky's heard
that laugh before, and you are fooling exactly no one, Rogers. The light
comes back to his eyes, and he watches Steve carefully, before saying,
maybe predictably, "Please tell me it was you."
Steve laughs again in the same hollow way. It's not a 'yes'. It's pretty damn far from a yes, in fact. Just like his answer is going to be. "Depends," he says honestly, shaking his head. "I didn't lose. Losing would mean I'd be long dead. And I sort of won the second one after the helicopter hit the water."
Too much information, he thinks a bit late. Still, he shrugs and tries to cushion this blow with the only hope he'd stuck to for years, hunting Bucky down.
"The first time you almost killed me. Shot me once or twice," or three times, "but when I dropped my shield and stopped fighting? You could have finished it. And you didn't. You actually pulled me out of the water before I drowned. It...meant you were still in there. After everything. You were still in there."
His smile is honest now. Almost warm. He knows that all will be hard to hear but the end is what matters. The end that shows, even in the worst moment, Bucky was in there. Bucky was going to come back.
Bucky just ends up looking skeptically at Steve - not because he
disbelieves Steve, because ridiculous as all those words sound coming out
of his mouth, they're pretty much on par with what he's come to expect from
his - their - lives. But still, "I guess you did win," he has to concede,
because - well. He's still only got part of the story, but any HYDRA
operative - even himself - that didn't complete his mission had definitely
lost. They both know that.
Well, that, and, "Shit." Bucky blows out a breath, but a moment later his
lips do twitch up into this crazy, crazy smile, because, "I guess
so. I mean - if he'd meant to kill you, it wouldn't have taken two shots."
He's a fuckin' better sniper than that.
Still... it's all so much. So much, and that's even leaving anything
about his Steve out of it, which... God. God, he kind of has to right now,
because the second he really, truly lets himself sit down and think about
it... he's probably gonna end up in that bar, himself. At least his
serum lets him get pretty drunk, although - "You been at that bar a lot,
Rogers?" he asks, softly. "I thought you couldn't really get sauced."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:32 pm (UTC)He feels like the breath's been punched out of him for a minute. He's never really just... sat down and spelled this all out for anybody. Least of all a dead guy.
He pulls in another breath, tries again. "It's 2014. Which I know sounds stupid, but - maybe not as stupid as you'd think," he says, given what Steve just told him. "You died in 1945. In the Alps. We looked for your body, Steve." Hell yes he'd made sure they had, and not just because losing access to the one working sample of Erskine's formula, even frozen, had been unacceptable to the Army. That had just been a convenient way to muster more resources. Even if it had all been in vain. "We never found fucking anything." Everyone had concluded he'd crashed into the icy river, been carried away. Bucky hadn't liked it, but he'd believed it.
"So... I got promoted to Captain."
With the capital C. As in, Captain America.
Hence the shield. The suit.
This doesn't make any sense at all.
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:47 pm (UTC)They'd both been wrong.
Steve feels like he has asthma all over again. He can't breathe and he's choking on his own tongue trying to talk as he stares at Bucky who...who is him. It's him in another life where HYDRA never got him. Never tortured him. He's whole and he doesn't care that this means he was probably the one in Bucky's place because his best friend had been spared.
This is what it looks like. Bucky alive and whole and spared.
His eyes are shining as he grips his friend's shoulders, still not quite able to breathe or get color back into his face.
"You fell off the train, Buck. Where...where I came from, you fell off the train. I tried to get to you and...the railing broke. I couldn't... There was nothing anyone could do. They were sure you were dead and they didn't even look for you..."
His head is spinning. He's not sure if it's lack of oxygen, hangover, or everything crashing in on him at once.
"God...Bucky. It's really you?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:56 pm (UTC)It's like looking in the mirror, only... a weird, wrong funhouse mirror, one that shows you exactly what you want to see and don't want to see at the same time. The number of times Bucky had wished it had been him, because he was just a soldier - well. Because they'd thought he'd been just a soldier at the time, because he'd ignored and buried all the signs that maybe he wasn't, and because Steve was just - Steve was everything. Steve was the good guy, Steve was Captain America for a reason. Bucky knows he's not the right guy for the job. He's just the one they'd conveniently picked, and now he's stuck with it. Which is okay, really, because what else does he have? What else could he have, but a slew of dead or dying friends and the memories of a guy he can never quite live up to?
He grabs at Steve to haul him in for a hug, partly because that's just what he needs to do, because Steve needs it, and maybe even because Bucky needs it. And partly so Steve won't see all that in his face, because it's hard to stay so stoic when... this is so messed up.
"I'm as real as I ever was. If you are," he says, quietly. Only a little strangled.
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Date: 2019-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)Jesus, this was a mess.
"I'm real," he assures him, face buried into his shoulder. "I'm real. I wish to God sometimes I wasn't, especially with this hangover. But not if...not if you're real, too." His hands are fisting up against this suit Bucky is wearing, not letting him go until Steve's 100% sure he's not going to cry. His face already feels alarmingly damp but he'll say that was just water he spilled, earlier.
When he finally retreats, he drags his sleeve across to clean it up, fast.
"God. Look at you. Captain James Buchanan Barnes. Captain America..." He can't help his watery laugh. "Did they make the suit pinch any less for you?"
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Date: 2019-02-01 04:01 am (UTC)Maybe they're about to get better, because fuck being kidnapped, but if it means Steve's here... Alive -
Bucky takes in a slow breath of his own, proud of the way it doesn't really shudder. He doesn't pull away until Steve does, and if he notices anything on his face... well. He doesn't have to say anything about it, does he.
Of course, he does snort a moment later. "It sounds even worse when you say it," he mutters, because he still doesn't feel like the name fits him right. And the suit - well.
He actually laughs a little, even though it's not funny. "The first one was a little big." That first one being Steve's original combat gear, because there hadn't been time or resources to adjust them. The fit had been close enough - they're roughly the same size, but Bucky's a little slimmer, and while no one else had noticed... he'd noticed every single way that uniform had been meant for Steve, not him. "This one? I guess not." He rotates one shoulder a bit. "Although somehow, it's nice to know it's not just me they've got it in for."
He lets out another breath, takes a closer, longer look at Steve. It's... Steve, that's all there is to it, as simple and as complicated as that may be. "So you're still Cap? Where - when - you're from?"
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Date: 2019-02-01 04:14 am (UTC)"Yeah," he finally says, knowing that he hardly looks the part right now with this uniform on and his hair the sort of messy, unkempt style that people liked in the future. It really doesn't matter at the moment, though. Bucky won't care about that. "Yeah, I am still Cap. There's a lot of people here from my time. Nat, Vision, Wanda, Thor, Loki..."
Bucky. Shit.
"I...uh..." Gracelessly, he avoids mentioning that last one. This Bucky will need to know. Just...not now. "I don't know if you know all of them..."
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Date: 2019-02-01 04:24 am (UTC)But he has to shake his head. "The other two, though - no." Still - it doesn't matter how much his home is or isn't like Steve's, really. What matters is, "I'm amazed you made friends with some real live people." He ends up elbowing Steve a little, smiling. If it's a little thin and shaky around the edges... well. Whatever.
And then he glances around this place, because - "Nice art studio, by the way. Although maybe you should get a cot."
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Date: 2019-02-01 04:34 am (UTC)He nudges Bucky back. And it's so much like before. Like no time has passed and, despite all the odds, he got his best friend back, untouched by time. It's not true, of course. Bucky has changed. He's different and older with the same battles under his belt that Steve has. It's like they're the same. In all the new ways, they are the same. And in all the old ways, they're the people they'd always been.
The laughter fades as that nudge instead turns into Steve grabbing and holding Bucky's arm once more. His mouth opens and closes around words that don't want to come out. Things that don't make sense or sound wrong. Or maybe he just doesn't have the voice for all of them, considering how tight his throat has become.
But in the end, what's important makes its way out:
"I missed you, Buck. God, I missed you so bad..."
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Date: 2019-02-01 05:12 am (UTC)But anything else he might have been about to say is immediately overshadowed by the way Steve grabs him, the look on his face - and the way he realizes, looking at Steve's face...
"Hey. I might not be your Bucky," he says, softly - because he's not, how can he be? Steve's Bucky is dead - and Bucky's Steve is dead. This is a different Steve, but still so much the same, and - "but I don't think there's rules." He smiles; it's a little sad, a little tight, but that's just him trying to hold himself together. For Steve. Because that's how it works. Bucky doesn't fall apart, because Steve needs him not to. It's always been that way. He thinks it must have been for this Steve's Bucky, too.
"I missed you, too," he breathes out, letting himself say it, because Steve deserves to hear it, quiet though the words are. They're sincere. "The whole world missed you," he adds, but leaves and all they got was me, instead out of it.
And still, even while that's true, "I like to think I'm still in first place, though."
He fucking missed Steve more than anyone else. Even Peggy.
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Date: 2019-02-01 05:31 am (UTC)It's all he can do to pull Bucky in for another hug, burying his face into his shoulder as his eyes finally overflow. The same, silent sobs he learned in the twenties when boys weren't allowed to cry but he'd been kicked too many times to do anything else. Not that Bucky judged him. He was always safe.
Christ, it is so incredible to feel safe again.
"You're my Bucky," he argues, his voice cracking around the words. It feels a little like betrayal to his real Bucky, here, but God, this is his friend back again. And Bucky was right. There were no real rules, here.
He could be guilty later. Right now he just holds on tighter and tries to stop the tears he hasn't let fall since he was a smaller man.
"And shut up. The world was in good hands, with you. Christ, Buck." He just shuts his eyes, at a complete loss.
"Christ. Just...shut up and let me embarrass myself."
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Date: 2019-02-01 06:49 pm (UTC)"Steve - "
The reaction is automatic - Bucky's hands come up, one wrapping around Steve's broad shoulders, the other burying careful fingertips in his hair. He is intimately familiar with this - the way Steve cries - and just as familiar with the fact that it doesn't happen often. It's making his own vision go hazy, but his voice is still steady, rock solid like the rest of him, because Steve might be built like a tank but that doesn't mean Bucky is just gonna let the world take its potshots at him. He never did, and he never will. Not when it feels like he's being handed a second chance at something he failed so utterly, so completely, the first time around. That's a mistake, a failing, he can never undo. But just because you can't undo something doesn't mean you give up. It doesn't mean you stop letting things matter, or stop making a difference.
It doesn't mean you don't cling just as tightly to the guy you lost, as he's clinging to you.
Bucky laughs a little, though it's a quiet, raw sound. "I mean, I guess it's good to know I pretty much did exactly what you would do. That's a sign-off from the boss if ever I got one."
His fingers keep scritching gently at Steve's scalp, letting him stay close even if he's absolutely not embarrassing himself.
Eventually, into the quiet, Bucky asks, "How long've you been here?"
It's okay if Steve's not ready to answer yet, or if he doesn't want to pull away to do it. Bucky's not exactly going anywhere.
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Date: 2019-02-01 07:33 pm (UTC)"Not long. Just a month or two, I think. We had...this thing. Where we were stuck and having to watch people's memories. It messed with my sense of time, honestly. For all I know it's been a week or a year. But I think...I think it's been a month or two."
He finally pulls back and lets his face stay wet with tears. It's not like Bucky wouldn't know otherwise. His eyes are glued to his friend, still not quite believing that this isn't all a dream. But Bucky's hand is warm against the back of his neck so, if it is a dream, it's a vivid one. He'll stay, if it's all the same. He'll stay for a good long while.
"I'm on the Bishop. It's a weird ship," he says with a laugh. "The captain there is a four-armed alien from a warring race. The first officer is from another galaxy and was a general of a huge galactic army. And beside them there is a psychic terrorist, a small kid who used to battle with a key, and...well. There's someone else but I haven't met them." It's not really funny but that doesn't mean he's not going to keep laughing anyways.
"This place...it's a trip."
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Date: 2019-02-01 08:16 pm (UTC)Bucky frowns a little, more in confusion than anything, at the explanation. It does sound like a trip, which is not exactly a good thing. Especially not if it's airing potential dirty laundry, which he kind of assumes when he hears "having to watch people's memories." He's definitely not thinking that means seeing people enjoy happy, carefree childhoods.
Then again, maybe it's just because his and Steve's weren't exactly that, much of the time. Maybe it's different for most people - and then Steve starts explaining his ship's crew, and... well, that idea goes right back out the window. (Airlock?)
Still, his smile a wry. "Well, when you wake up in the future and get told to stop an army of aliens pouring out of the sky... I guess at least it puts some of this shit in perspective?"
At least Steve might actually get what that feels like, for better or worse. But if he does, maybe he'll at least laugh.
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Date: 2019-02-01 08:25 pm (UTC)He's not letting go of Bucky. Even as he seems to calm down and his tears cease, he's not letting go of Bucky. His hands stay glued to his arms. His shoulders. Anything he can get a hold of and grip. Which reminds him...
His eyes drift to Bucky's left arm. It's flesh and solid, the same as it had been before. Steve's hand trails down to his friend's and traces his fingertips over the roughened skin of Bucky's. No metal. No wounds. No broken joint that Hydra manipulated into his body.
Idly, he wonders if he has that arm, now, where Bucky was from. It's a disturbing thought.
"You and I are experts at kidnapping, if you think about it. Falling asleep and waking up someplace else entirely. But at least SHIELD had better reasons than a show."
At the time, at least...
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Date: 2019-02-01 08:58 pm (UTC)Bucky's grin gets a little more bemused. "Yeah, that happened to me, too. I feel like it happening to one of us is weird enough. Both of us is just... " He shakes his head, but still - part of him, deep down, feels warmth kindle at the thought of shared life experiences. Especially experiences that are so weird that they aren't something you can just explain to someone who hasn't had them. It makes him feel less alone, in a different way than finding Steve again, even. Maybe he hopes it makes Steve feel the same way.
In the meantime, Bucky doesn't mind if Steve stays close. He does cock an eyebrow as Steve seems to take a particular interest in his left arm, though - not in the least because he wasn't drunk earlier, so he remembers Steve specifically mentioning that arm, even if it hadn't made any sense at the time. It still doesn't, really, only now he stands a chance of actually getting an answer: "Did your guy lose it? The arm, I mean."
It seems logical to him, really. Plenty of guys lost limbs in the war. Maybe the other Bucky did, too. He can't really see it slowing him down, somehow, which really, is more amusing than anything. At least, he concentrates on that feeling, rather than the twist in his gut at the thought of losing an arm - or anything.
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Date: 2019-02-01 09:20 pm (UTC)"Yeah. He...fell off the train and lost his arm. I'm sure you realize now that you had a version of the serum in you, then. So...My Bucky. He fell off the train and lived." Steve inhales and holds it to straighten his spine just a little more. "He's actually here, too. Arrived before me. And his left arm is all machinery."
He doesn't say anything about HYDRA. He can't load all of that onto Bucky and expect him to not crumble underneath the knowledge. This alone is enough for him to come to terms with. Because, Steve is sure that it will open up a new possibility in Bucky's head that he hasn't thought of before:
That, if Steve's Bucky lived, so too might have his Steve.
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Date: 2019-02-04 12:24 am (UTC)So yeah. He knows. And so does SHIELD, and he knows it's going to get out eventually. He's been Captain America again. People are going to figure it out. There's already been enough speculation, on websites and news shows because people can watch the footage over and over again and see that he can do more than he should. It wasn't a freak accident that he never died. It was shoddy, secondhand version of the serum that gave Steve everything, and then took it all away.
And now - now Steve is absolutely right. Bucky's brain skips right over the fact that there's another him here - that this Steve still has his best friend, and he's here, and suddenly Bucky feels lie a sham, like an impostor, like a kid desperate to replace the best friend that just moved away with someone else - and it takes the rest of what Steve said and he feels suddenly sick. So sick that his face goes pale, his hand rising to cover his mouth like he might make like Steve and throw up whatever the hell he last ate, because -
Because if this Steve's Bucky could have survived with that shoddy, secondhand serum (and Bucky survived the crash with it, and now he knows Steve could have, too). If that had happened, then how the hell would a fall like that have killed his Steve Rogers.
Fuck. Fuck. He really feels like he's gonna be sick.
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Date: 2019-02-04 03:37 pm (UTC)Lives to be tortured for seventy years by HYDRA and made into an assassin. That was going to go over great.
"Breathe," he repeats, eyes focusing on Bucky and trying to see if he's going to need to hurl on the floor as well. "Look. That was my timeline. Even though it seems real similar, there's no guarantee that the same things happened both times. Like. We never looked for you, when you fell. I begged, but they never did. You searching means...maybe I did fall in the river. Maybe I hit a stone wrong. I could have died." Which normally wouldn't be said so hopefully. Life is weird sometimes.
He reaches up with the hand not on Bucky's neck and cups Bucky's cheek.
"You did everything you could. Everything. Hear it from me, alright? I wouldn't blame you. You went above and beyond for me. If I lived, it was by luck. None of this was your fault."
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Date: 2019-02-04 04:35 pm (UTC)For a second, it sounds like Steve is talking to him from the end of a very, very long tunnel - probably because Bucky isn't really breathing, his world narrowing to that one thought, over and over: Steve could have lived. Steve could have been alive, and they'd stopped searching, left him for dead -
His body finally seems to register the big, warm hands on his skin; his lungs inflate, and he doesn't feel a whole lot better, but some of the color comes back to his face. He looks less like he's going to upchuck all over Steve's very nice art studio floor.
His eyes finally get some life back in them, as they seek out Steve's, watching him mutely for a moment. It is wrong, to hear Steve like that - to hear him suggest ways he might have died. Bucky didn't want Steve to be dead. With every passing hour, he'd wanted to be proven wrong. He'd wanted to find not a corpse - and certainly not nothing - but Steve, maybe a bit banged up, but miraculously, ridiculously, alive and ribbing him for it.
Steve touches his cheek, and maybe that's when Bucky finally comes back, fully, into the present. The weird-ass, wacky, fucked-up present and he both wants to just... go away for a while, and never wants to lose, because it's Steve, here and now, touching him, and -
He barks out something like a laugh, even if it's too derisive. Too painful. "If you lived... it doesn't matter what I did. It wasn't enough."
Then his eyes focus a little more, and bore into Steve's, harder. "You thought it was your fault when your guy - when I - fell. Didn't you." It's almost less of a question, and more of an accusation.
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Date: 2019-02-04 05:05 pm (UTC)And then he'd lived. Steve's, grip tightens around these things Bucky can't know yet. His blood boils and freezes with it in equal measure.
"We didn't even look for you. We just assumed. And then you were back and everything that happened to you was because of the choices I made. So yeah. Yeah, I blamed myself. But it was different."
Peggy had told Steve to allow Bucky his choice. But it had never felt like a choice. He and Bucky were just magnets and where one went the other was pulled. Where was the choice in that?
Steve exhales shakily and pushes their foreheads together.
"I know what you're feeling. But I swear, I don't--wouldn't-- blame you..."
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Date: 2019-02-04 06:59 pm (UTC)Bucky snorts, because - "That's bullshit. Of course you chose me to be on that train." Bucky had been there because of Steve... but that's been true his whole life. He's always followed Steve, had his back - until the one time he hadn't - and the truth is, "If you hadn't, I would've insisted." No one else would've been right for that mission. It was why he stayed in the fucking war, when he could've gone home. No one else was ever gonna watch Steve's back half as well as Bucky could - until that one time he hadn't. "Steve, if I didn't like fighting next to you... I don't know how you guys became friends, but we wouldn't have, if that had ever been the case." Bucky had met Steve in a back alley brawl as a snot-nosed kid, and immediately wanted to stand beside him. That desire hasn't changed, not once in his entire life.
Not even after Steve had died - hell. Maybe died. Probably not died. Shit.
He shakes his head; this is crazy, it's crazy on both sides, hearing that it was him and not Steve, it's almost a fucking relief. "Of course you didn't look for me. I should've been dead, and it would've been a waste of resources." Bucky takes a deep breath, holds it in for a long moment, feeling the reality of Steve's skin against his, the hands holding his arms - and he reaches up to grip Steve's arms, a mirror image, and lets that breath out, slowly, shakily. "Well. Then I know what you're feeling. And he doesn't blame you. I wouldn't. I don't."
He reaches up, one hand gripping the back of Steve's neck solidly, trying to prove it. He knows Steve - he knows Steve isn't really gonna let that stop him from feeling guilty. But maybe if Bucky repeats it enough. Maybe - "You said he was here, too?"
Why the hell hasn't he beaten it through Steve's thick skull yet?
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Date: 2019-02-04 07:30 pm (UTC)It's that thought that has him leaning into this Bucky's hands, eyes shutting against this warm, familiar feeling. He has his friend. His friend is here and is talking to him. He can deal with everything else so much better just by not feeling so alone.
"Yeah. He's here."
Steve doesn't know where to start with the mess of what happened to the other James Buchanan. He bites the inside of his cheek, wishing there was a way to make this less awful. But there's just...not.
"Look. Just. Remember that this is my timeline. What I'm saying doesn't.... necessarily mean that it happened to your Steve." But he's sure that he wasted his breath saying that. Bucky's mind will go there. Of course it would.
"He just. Doesn't...really remember me. My Bucky." God, that hurts to say even now. "When he fell off the train, some HYDRA people found him. They messed with his mind and used him for missions. He's free of them, now. But... Yeah. Right now he still doesn't remember much about me." He laughs, humorlessly, trying to defuse the tension but being too affected to do it properly.
"Actually. If you wanna know who wins in a fight between you and me... I got stories, pal."
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Date: 2019-02-05 04:01 pm (UTC)The way Steve's face just falls before he even opens his mouth to say a word already has Bucky concerned. Steve's shit at hiding, things, triply shit at hiding them from Bucky, and whatever he's gonna say... it isn't gonna be good.
And the first thing out of his mouth - the disclaimer that things might be different for his Steve? Yeah, not reassuring at all, buddy.
And then it just gets worse. Bucky blinks, trying to parse the words Steve's speaking, trying to get the meaning from such simple phrases. Doesn't remember him. HYDRA found him. Messed with his mind and used him for missions. "What the fuck?" he whispers, almost like he doesn't actually realize he's saying it out loud. He kind of doesn't. Because what. The fuck. Fucking HYDRA. Of course.
The thought makes him go cold, like being frozen all over again. The thought of going through it all again - the torture, the tests, only worse, and neverending... Bucky's not like Steve. He has a healthy goddamn fear of things that are terrifying. And that thought is fucking terrifying.
And then his brain ticks over to the fact that... yeah. All of that might have happened to Steve. His Steve. If he hadn't died, all of this could have happened to him, and... wow, how about Bucky just never eats ever again. That seems like a good solution, because otherwise how is he ever supposed to keep anything down, knowing that. Knowing -
Steve's attempt a a laugh is maybe what snaps him out of it. Bucky's heard that laugh before, and you are fooling exactly no one, Rogers. The light comes back to his eyes, and he watches Steve carefully, before saying, maybe predictably, "Please tell me it was you."
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Date: 2019-02-05 11:20 pm (UTC)Too much information, he thinks a bit late. Still, he shrugs and tries to cushion this blow with the only hope he'd stuck to for years, hunting Bucky down.
"The first time you almost killed me. Shot me once or twice," or three times, "but when I dropped my shield and stopped fighting? You could have finished it. And you didn't. You actually pulled me out of the water before I drowned. It...meant you were still in there. After everything. You were still in there."
His smile is honest now. Almost warm. He knows that all will be hard to hear but the end is what matters. The end that shows, even in the worst moment, Bucky was in there. Bucky was going to come back.
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Date: 2019-02-06 03:41 pm (UTC)Bucky just ends up looking skeptically at Steve - not because he disbelieves Steve, because ridiculous as all those words sound coming out of his mouth, they're pretty much on par with what he's come to expect from his - their - lives. But still, "I guess you did win," he has to concede, because - well. He's still only got part of the story, but any HYDRA operative - even himself - that didn't complete his mission had definitely lost. They both know that.
Well, that, and, "Shit." Bucky blows out a breath, but a moment later his lips do twitch up into this crazy, crazy smile, because, "I guess so. I mean - if he'd meant to kill you, it wouldn't have taken two shots." He's a fuckin' better sniper than that.
Still... it's all so much. So much, and that's even leaving anything about his Steve out of it, which... God. God, he kind of has to right now, because the second he really, truly lets himself sit down and think about it... he's probably gonna end up in that bar, himself. At least his serum lets him get pretty drunk, although - "You been at that bar a lot, Rogers?" he asks, softly. "I thought you couldn't really get sauced."
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