fossilised | For Steve

It had been another really rough day on Steve. No letters had come from Bucky in a week, the movie theater was still closed, and he'd had an asthma attack in the middle of a physical he was getting to try for the fifth time that month to get the Army to pick him up. Not too many men willing to enlist were turned away but Steve had traveled to Queens and to the Bronx and had been stamped a failure no matter where he went.

His breathing was still a little labored that night. It was not quite summer, the mornings and evenings were chilled, and that always made it feel like his lungs were lined with wet cement. He was dreaming not about the anamolies they had all been told were Nazi produced, through gas and light shows, but about being bussed to basic training, given a helmet and a uniform--

It was all he wanted, other than to see Bucky again. He firmly expected to meet up with his friend in Europe, and dreamed now of his platoon being there when he stepped off of the plane-- ridiculous. Romanticized. There was a good chance he wouldn't see Bucky at all until the war was over.

As a thick cough caught him, pulling him from sleep, Steve was still thinking about Bucky, right up until he saw a hulking, dark figure at the bottom of his bed.

"Woah," he wheezed, one hand trying to find his medicine while he gasped up at the intruder. "I don't have much, mister. Not sure I can help!"

Bucky watched the man on the bed struggle for breath as though he had done it a hundred time before, a thousand even, but he made no move to help. He had no idea of any help he could offer, all of that had gone and not been retrieved yet. But the sensation that he definitely knew this skinny and weak individual only increased moment by moment. The voice that rasped out to him in the dark was one he could almost play in his head perfectly.

His brow furrowed just slightly.

"I don't want anything from you," he said, his voice low and even. The same voice and yet with decades of abuse and sorrow layered on top of it to make it nearly unrecognisable as Bucky Barnes. Was what he had said true? Did he not want anything? Why had he even come here, to this apartment, as if drawn by a magnet he had been powerless to resist?

The gloom was thick in the bedroom, but the Soldier had been trained how to maximise his sight in low levels of light and so he never even considered reaching for the switch.

When his inhaler did not become readily available to him, Steve switched tactics and went for the switch light on the lamp by his bed. It was his mother’s, a little feminine with a lacy shade, but there was nothing at all wrong with it and Steve didn’t really have a whole lot of money to be tossing out perfectly good lamps. The blaze of soft orange from the bulb blinded him, but at least he was able to find the large white inhaler that had been smuggled under the foot of the lamp. He puffed twice to open up his airways before lifting somber blue eyes upwards.

He didn’t really think he was going to be killed, this wasn’t that kind of neighborhood, but he was pretty sure he was about to be robbed. His medicine might be worth something. Steve didn’t intend to give it up without a fight, though.

Buck taught him how to defend himself against people bigger than himself and—

He blinked, first confused and then filled with entirely too much emotion. He pushed down the bedspread and knelt, mouth open and eyes wet with the start of happy tears. “Buck! You’re home!”

Steve's first impression might be of deep blue eyes and that same face, but the differences would surely become apparent soon enough. His hair was longer, down to his chin and obviously not even close to regulation length. He wore jeans like a man working construction, and had on a hooded sweatshirt with the letters NYC emblazoned across the front.

But it was his expression that had altered the most. No ready smile, no twinkle in his eye, just a fiercely grim expression and eyes that stared out at Steve as though he was a complete stranger. He shifted when Steve moved properly, just slightly into a fighting stance, though his leather gloved hands remained loose by his sides.

"Is this my home?"

Was that why it had felt familiar?

You heard stuff like this, about men coming home in less than one piece, their minds gone or a limb missing. It wasn’t exactly the early stages of the war anymore. The people upstairs had a son that had come home without a left foot and every time a car backfired, he passed out. And down the street was a man who was missing his eyes…his sister had come up from Florida to mind him, that’s how bad it was. That’s why so many people in the tenement hide from the draft board or tried to run. Steve didn’t judge them.

And he didn’t judge Bucky either. The time line didn’t really line up though. How could Bucky’s hair grow out over the last week? He had the letter under his bed and it was postmarked two weeks ago, having arrived last Monday. Buck’s hair was like wildfire but nothing could grow that fast.

And he’d never be sent home so quickly either. There were hospitals for that.

And that worried Steve. He slipped out of bed in bare feet (he didn’t have time to locate his slippers, and while the ground was cold enough to make his coughing worse, he didn’t care.

“Sort of. You use to stay here with me a lot. Your parents are a few blocks away…. Have you been there yet?” Steve kept his hands visible. He moved slowly. There was not going to be a tearful hug of reunion after all. “Do… Don’t you know who I am, pal?”

Bucky kept his eyes fixed on Steve, his gaze flickering down to check his hands were empty as the smaller man stood up properly to face him. He wasn't afraid, not even if this man did attack, for it was clear that Bucky had the advantage on him even without his combat ability. Something about him set Bucky's teeth on edge in a way that nobody else could, though, and he was more intimidated by this scrawny kid than he was by a whole hoard of HYDRA agents.

"I don't know, I think I might recognise you. But that's impossible."

He flexed his fingers, the leather of his gloves creaking slightly. They were good quality, way better than he could have afforded in his youth, but in the future they had been just a couple of bucks from a street stall.

"You're Steve Rogers, but you can't be. I've seen you, you're bigger."

None of this was right.

Steve found himself smiling a little more wryly now. "That a joke?" He wasn't laughing but he did find himself capable of maintaining the smile anyway. That was partly from affection and partly from disquiet. He wasn't afraid of Bucky, but he was afraid for him. His friend had been gone for months but every letter he had sent was filled with his brilliance and his humor. To lose that would be a terrible thing.

Steve wasn't going to give up hope, though.

He did, however, take all of Bucky in, examined every part of him now that his eyes had adjusted to the low light and the shadows. Steve had an artist's eye. He could see the details unfolding without having to know the whole picture. It was why so many people failed to see how clever and smart he was. It was why they underestimated him.

The clothes were wrong. Strange. So we're the boots. Military, but not really. Steve knew the army uniform by heart. He dreamed of wearing it.

Bucky didn't have dog tags. His coat was strange and the glove he could see?

Not right. None of this was right. He would have agreed with Bucky's sentiments.

"Can I make you something? You look like you need a drink." Water was the best he could do for that, though. Or milk. He'd been smart with his ration card this week.

He shook his head just slightly. He didn't take food or drink from people that offered it freely, that was a one way trip to potentially ending up spiked with something that he would rather not have in his system. At least if he bought it all himself, then he knew it was clean because he didn't choose what to buy until he was right there in front of it.

Suddenly a memory sparked in his head and he fumbled in his bag to pull out a notebook, already a little worn at the edges as if it had been handled a lot. Only a few pages were filled in Bucky's distinctive neat handwriting, and newspaper clippings were stuck to other pages, but he riffled through too quickly to have any of it read.

Finally he found what he was looking for, a leaflet from the Smithsonian kept carefully between the pages.

He took it out and held it out to Steve mutely. It had a picture of him on the front, skinny and staring ahead, and then a picture of a man with his face and muscles in front, wearing a bright uniform and holding a shield. The title said: CAPTAIN AMERICA - THE GREATEST HERO OF US HISTORY. SPECIAL EXHIBITION: FROM MOUSE TO MAN, FROM DECEMBER 2011.

Steve couldn't see the clipping with his back to the lamp and so he had to retreat, trusting Bucky instinctively and not minding that he made himself vulnerable as he held the letter up to his face and lightly pressed his fingertips against his lips. His eyes focused on the photo of him, one that looked like it came from his medical file he had doctored up before all of his attempts to enlist. He didn't have the money to take many others. He had a few from when he and Bucky were younger, and one of his mom and dad. Photographs were precious. Expensive. How did one get printed in the paper so clearly?

He recognized the other person as him as well... Bone structure was the same even if everything else as been distorted with size. His hand started to tremble. The artist had to have been amazing in his or her ability. And cruelty. "I don't--"

Captain America? Mouse to Man?

The wind was knocked out of his sails and Steve dropped the scant foot or so onto the edge of his thin mattress. This was hurtful. He couldn't even describe how small and worthless it made him feel, for a few seconds, before teary eyes lifted back to Bucky.

"You're.... You're one of the Nazi hallucinations?" He dropped the clipping onto the bed and stepped up to Bucky, wanting to touch him. Wanting to know if he was real.

Bucky's eyes never left the leaflet in Steve's hands, tracking it even as he sat back on the bed, as if he had given over gold dust and wanted to make certain that it was kept safe. In a way, it was more precious than gold dust to him. The clippings, the little snippets of writing, all of that held the keys to who he really was and he would protect them with his life.

"No."

He flexed his fingers again as if reaffirming to himself that he was real. But he knew he was. No matter what other existential issues he had with identity and self, he had never doubted that both he and what had happened to him were real.

"I was there last week. Left and went to an airport, found myself here. Think this is the past."

That was the longest sentence that the Asset had given in a very long time, other than ordered mission reports.

It was important, at least according to some writers, that if time travel ever became possible, not to alter the past too much or risk changing the future forever. Steve used to think about that. How many people wouldn't be born if a man was late for a movie with his future wife? How many important events wouldn't happen if there was a bus accident? Little things could have damaging effects on time.

So if all of those hallucinations had been real, if those glimpses into the New York of the future with the tall glass buildings and the flashy, hyper real movies at the theater, what did that mean about Bucky?

Steve shook his head, and since Bucky didn't stop him, he pressed one hand against the flat of a chest so much more densely packed with muscle than it had been before. "You haven't aged. If all of that was true-- that has to be decades in the future," Steve pointed out, still unsure about his own role in all of this.

He wanted to believe that he had hope.

"You're serving in Europe right now, Right now. And I-- People don't just fall asleep and turn into... That. This is who I am, pal."

There was no way that he would let anyone touch him normally, but for some reason he didn't move. He just stood and let Steve lay a hand on his chest, he just let the smaller man get right up into his personal space. Why did he feel secure here? As if he knew deep down to his very bones that Steve Rogers wouldn't hurt him.

"The exhibit, I can tell you what it said."

He still hadn't remembered a lot of it as first hand information, only snatches, but he could perfectly recall everything that had been said in those little glass cases and over the speakers. It was the gift of the serum, excellent retention for details such as that. A furrow appeared in Bucky's brow as if it were difficult to speak so much, but he launched into it anyway.

"Steve Rogers, enlisted after several failed attempts under the patronage of Dr. Abraham Erskine for the super soldier project. Dr. Erskine had developed a serum which would enhance a soldier's natural abilities, physical and mental, to progress them into a super soldier with enhanced physical durability, combat skills, healing capability, and longevity. After successfully completing basic training despite physical ailments, Rogers was chosen for the project due to his self sacrificing and noble nature. With collaboration from Howard Stark and the US government, Dr. Erskine put his serum to the test. Steve Rogers entered the process at 5'4" and 95lbs with numerous physical disabilities, and left the process at 6'2" and 240lbs with no physical disabilities. Granted the honorary title of Captain America, Rogers was initially used as a publicity tool to sell war bonds. However, after discovering that his childhood friend, Sergeant James Barnes, had been captured by the Nazis, he disobeyed orders to remain behind and rescued him, as well as dozens of other captives, single-handedly. From then on, Captain America became a symbol of hope throughout the war, and was instrumental in our victory over the Nazi forces."

"That's the plot of a dime novel," Steve bristled immediately, dropping his arm and taking a step back. He felt an immeasurable amount of hurt, not because Bucky was saying these things but because he wanted them to be true. He wanted to grow a foot and gain one hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle. He wanted to be a hero, not to be a hero so much as to protect the people he loved and cared about. He wanted to save America from the war and Bucky was saying that was exactly what he did. In the future.

He dashed back to the bed, wheezing thanks to his 'physical ailments' and snatched the paper up to give back to Bucky.

"But if that's true, you're in trouble. I haven't gone so long without a letter from you, buddy, so you must be in trouble or have moved into an area where you can't post anything. We have to try to save you." He threw on a robe laid across the bottom of his bed and finally in slippers, he rushed out to the living room where the telephone book was.

He didn't know if the doctor Bucky mentioned would be listed, but he had to try to find out which enlistment office he was working out of.

He needed to get this moving if it was his destiny!

He needed--

Steve turned, halfway to the kitchen.

"That's not all. If that was all, you wouldn't be... What happened after you were saved, Buck?"

"No."

Bucky felt a wave of panic grip him then like a fist around his throat and, for the first time since he had got into this apartment, he started to look menacing. If he let Steve go off and become Captain America then everything would work out exactly as it had before and, honestly, Bucky didn't care about the issues of changing the future. Maybe he had chance to make sure that the Soldier was never made.

"Don't save him, let him die. It's better for everyone if he dies."

Maybe not then.

It would be better for everyone if he died when he fell from the train, then the world still had Captain America and history could proceed as if he had died, like everyone thought he had. It wouldn't alter anything. But he hadn't thought that far yet, he was just suddenly desperate not to let history repeat itself.

"Don't go to war."

“No?!”

Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He just couldn’t. Bucky didn’t look the same or sound the same from the person he had seen off a few months back, but he couldn’t believe that his friend would ever want anyone to die. Especially himself. Steve was stunned enough no to move for a moment, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t about to throw his scant ‘95lbs’ around in a moment.

He didn’t like being told he couldn’t or shouldn’t do something when he knew it was the right thing.

“I am not going to let you die. I don’t know what happened to you after all of this, Bucky, but you can’t… You have to remember me well enough to know that I would never leave you.” It didn’t matter if he stood a scant five and less than a half feet tall. Or that he could barely fight his way out of a paper bag.

Steve Rogers had and has always had heart.

And more love for Bucky Barnes than anyone else in his life.

“You don’t have to help, I can to this myself.”

"Til the end of the line."

It came out softly, but with more feeling behind it than anything else he had said yet. Steve saying he would never leave him, it made Bucky recall those words said over and over, the blood of a dying man on the helicarrier, stubborn and too proud to back down even when the man he thought was a friend was the one trying to kill him.

Could he deny the world Captain America?

He scrubbed a hand over his face and moved to stand beside Steve, utterly dwarfing him now.

"It's not the right thing to do. Better for the world if I'm dead now, before I have the chance to hurt anyone."

Besides, maybe Steve had already missed his chance with Erskine. Hadn't that been when he saw Bucky off to his overseas deployment? One last chance of enlisting at the fair? Maybe these timelines were already different somehow.

Bucky always dwarfed him and had always been intimidating. That didn’t mean at all that Steve was intimidated, however. He lifted his head appropriately to make sure he kept Bucky’s gaze with his own, though his eyes softened immensely when he nodded. “This isn’t the end of the line for everyone.”

The truth was, the time at the fair had passed. Once he’d seen Bucky off, the first of the disturbances happened and the fair had been closed. Every time Steve had been since to the recruitment office, there had been some sort of anomaly causing the city to blast air raid sirens in the street.

Neither Steve nor Bucky could know that this might have been a plot to keep there from ever being a Captain America.

Bucky had just been a piece of the puzzle that they had forgotten about.

“Will-- Will you talk to me? I’m here for you. Always been.”

At least Steve wasn't insisting that he immediately go and enlist, or go to the aid of a dead man walking. Maybe Bucky Barnes of this time would be grateful to be rescued, but if he knew what his future held then he would likely put a gun in his own mouth happily. Not that he had even been that stable after being rescued, nightmares and fear that didn't seem to fade. Better than what he had become, though.

So he nodded and followed Steve through to his meagre front room where there was a chill in the air without any heating for the room. The little threadbare sofa and wireless set, carefully maintained since it had been passed down from his father, it was all so familiar.

"I don't know what to say. I know that I'm-- I think I was Bucky Barnes once. I have some memories, not a lot."

But it had been Steve, future Steve, who had given him even that opportunity to question and find the start of the truth at all. Didn't he owe past Steve something?

“What made you forget?” Steve was used to the cold. The alleyway his building backed up against just happened to be a wind tunnel and the wind did it’s best to escape through the casement of the window or the front door. In winter, he shoved newspaper under the door and around the window sill but it’s was getting to be spring and sometimes the air during the day really helped to circulate everything.

So he sat on the couch, shivering and trying not to look like he was shivering, eyes intense and curiosity flared.

He felt almost as if he was being prideful, like he should probably take himself to church tomorrow and ask God to forgive him for being tempted by the future that may or may not happen. He didn’t want an ego, he just wanted to help, but sometimes good men turned evil when they gained power.

Look at all of the union bosses.

“Was it whatever you were saved from?” He was careful to separate the current and the potential. Both in his mind and in his words.

It bothered him, seeing Steve shivering and trying to disguise it. He had no idea why it bothered him so much, but it sent hooks into his brain and tugged as if demanding him to do something about it. Like it was only natural that he should care for and protect this scrawny thing who had way more guts than physical ability.

He took off his hoodie without further hesitation and draped it over Steve's shoulders. It was thick and warm, he'd bought it from the Smithsonian gift shop on the way out to make him blend in with the tourists. Deep blue with NYC emblazoned across the front. He still had a long sleeved shirt on underneath, and the cold barely touched him anyway.

"James Buchanan Barnes joined the Howling Commandos, Captain America's personal squadron, after his return from capture. He was the only member of that elite team to give his life in the service of his country, falling from a train during a combat mission in 1944."

His eyes lost some of the neutrality they had when he recited what he read in the museum, something softer and more real poking through when he got to his own memories. Voice still quiet, but now a bit more hesitant.

"I didn't die. Everyone thought-- but I didn't. HYDRA found me, gave me to the Soviets. Trained me."

"HYDRA...?" Steve had never heard of them. He wasn't sure about the Soviet and German connection either or the training or-- His mind was just too rattled, but he put the pieces together quickly. Captain America saved Bucky just to lose him to the enemy. Bucky was afraid he would hurt someone again because he had already hurt someone. Or many people. Steve heard all about brainwashing over there in Europe, and the thought terrified him.

He pulled himself together, rubbing at his arms through the thick wool of the hoodie. He didn't know what sort of jacket this was, but it was soft and it really took the chill out. Even if it was so big. Again, Steve was reminded of the 240 pound version of himself in that article.

"Bucky, whatever it... You're home now. You're home and we can maybe get word to you... The other you... Maybe to the army. No train mission. I just can't let you die all right? I'm so sorry-- I'm so sorry Captain America let you down."

It was as Steve suspected. Too much power made good men evil.

"He never let me down," said Bucky, instant and almost angry. "Never."

He would not have anyone, not even a past version of the man himself, cast any doubt on Steve Rogers as a person. He was a hero, no matter what happened, and he had always come through for Bucky. He had been there when he was needed, and somehow he had achieved the impossible to set him free from a prison he had been bound to for decades.

"He saved me."

Was that true? Was he saved now? Sometimes he wasn't sure, for the Soldier had at least been consistent, had made sense, had come without fear. He glanced down, suddenly aware that people might be able to find him here. It was obvious, wasn't it, that this was one of the places he would come?

"Will you come with me? Hotel. Somewhere not here, people could be following."

"Hotel-- Gee, Bucky. I don't think I can swing a hotel," Steve said, not really that embarrassed. The color from his cheeks and the color on his ears were not from embarrassment so much as a sudden flush from the way Bucky defended him. The other him. Maybe there ws nothing Captain America could have done. Maybe he wasn't even on the mission. Steve decided not to push his luck here.

He pressed his tongue between his lips, moving from the couch towards the cupboard where he stored his money and his ration cards. He was swimming in his pajamas and his robe and the hoodie, threading his arms through the sleeves of the latter so he could get his hands to work better. They were finely boned. Delicate. Made for holding charcoals. Not for war.

"Are you sure it isn't safe here?" he asked, holding up some change in the palm of his hand.

He hummed a response in the affirmative. It wasn't safe anywhere, but it was especially not safe in places that he had a prior connection where people could easily look him up. And now that he had made contact with Steve, that made Steve a target too. Strangely, that bothered him a hell of a lot more than being a target himself.

"Get clothes, a bag. I have money."

He had no idea how much a hotel room would cost here and in this time, that sort of knowledge had gone, but he had a few hundred bucks in his bag for emergencies. He was sure even a good hotel surely wouldn't be more than maybe a hundred bucks a night.

"Buck, I can't let you--" But he was already being shooed away and was left to pack a bag with some clothes and his medicine, worrying how they would manage a room in a hotel for even a single night let alone a few. All of his possessions fit into one bag and he sheepishly returned, dressed and in his coat, less than ten minutes later. He handed back the hoodie with a thanks.

Bucky would have to slow down his gait for Steve to keep up as they walked. He needed to stop twice to cough into a handkerchief but he never complained, going as fast as he could until they were at the edge of the neighborhood. There was a single late night ferry that could take them towards the only hotel that Steve knew about downtown, one he remembered Bucky fantasizing taking one of his girlfriends to if any ever agreed. It had big red letters on the marquee visible across the river.

The ferry cost ten cents, and Steve was nearly frozen solid by the time they hit Manhattan. The city was still jumping even during wartime, even though it was after midnight by that point.

There was a woman in her twenties behind the desk, looking bored, until she saw Bucky. Her red lips parted in a smile. "Normally we charge six dollars for such a late night request, but for you? I'll give you the five and a half dollar rate."

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