fossilised | For Steve

Oh God. Please, please give him strength. Please don't let this happen to him. He'd been very attracted to Agent Carter. Why was he still be tempted this way? Why hadn't he been given enough burden? Steve wasn't sure if that was an appropriate prayer. You should never pray to ask God for anything. It should be a conversation. Maybe he hadn't been talking to God so much lately but he was sure he had suffered through the worst of this temptation already. Hadn't he?

"I-- no, I'm all right." He slipped his fingers around Bucky's hand, Palm to his knuckles, but didn't pull him off. "You're uh... Well you're not exactly dressed for bed. Or for anything and..."

Steve didn't like to lie. He just didn't know what Bucky would do with this information if he told him. The old Bucky would have understood and probably kept his distance but still remain his friend. This one might kill him for it.

"I'm.. Struggling a little. With temptation. I think it's just stress. Or with you being so close-- I'm so sorry, Buck. I don't mean to be this way. I thought I was over it. I should let you sleep by yourself." He was so embarrassed.

The term bisexual just didn't exist in this place and time, there was no word to describe Steve being allowed to find both Agent Carter and Bucky attractive, and certainly no leniency on it in the eyes of the world. If he were caught, if he thought himself even slightly interested in men, then they could have him sent to jail for a crime or a hospital for his mental illness. It wasn't natural, men liking other men.

Bucky was still and silent for a long time after the confession.

Temptation. He had to work that through on what it meant, but even with the gaps in his knowledge, it didn't take too much to piece together what was intended behind those few hesitant words. That should scare him after some of the things that had been done to create the Soldier, but it didn't, and it certainly didn't disgust him. The Soldier and Bucky had both learned through the changing times about the evolving nature of sexuality.

"I don't know if I feel the same," he replied eventually. "You make me feel safe, I didn't think I would ever have that again."

His arm tightened around Steve, as if to stop him from leaving the bed and going elsewhere. Even if he didn't know what he wanted in return, he knew he didn't want to lose Steve.

"Don't go."

Steve genuinely hoped that Bucky didn't feel this way about him. What would that mean for the two of them? Steve would blame himself for the catchy sickness of it. He would never be able to forgive himself for what he'd done to Bucky. Maybe this would all get worked out in the end and he'd feel silly and laugh about it in the years to come. Oh God. He hoped so.

But having confirmation that Bucky still wanted him close did make Steve relax. Had he expected any different? They didn't abandon each other. Not even for sickness. Bucky had never left him at his lowest. And maybe this was what he needed. Temptation to overcome.

Steve relaxed his grip. And relaxed himself.

"I won't-- Bucky.. Thank you. I mean it. Thanks for understanding. Means the world to me. Maybe in DC I can find someone to help me...? I think they had therapy. After I get a job."

"Help you with what?"

Bucky didn't quite grasp what was going on here, at least not for a long few seconds. But then something shook loose in the vacuous void of his memory, one afternoon in school where rumours had gone around that Tyler Masters had been transferred out because he had been caught after gym doing things with another boy. The scandal, the disgust...

"Oh."

He was not the right person for this kind of comfort.

"It's not something that needs therapy. Being gay, it's natural. Nothing wrong with it."

Steve was instantly uncomfortable again. He'd thought he'd be able to ignore this for now and if the inkling came up again, he'd get some therapy but-- the term. He'd never heard that before. They called people like Tyler 'deviants' or 'homosexuals' because gay was a word meaning happy and nothing else.

Happy. There was nothing wrong with being happy. It was natural. Steve exhaled at thst, forcing the tension out of his chest.

"Maybe. But... Maybe we shouldn't talk about it." God would strike him down as he laid there, finding himself indeed happy in Bucky's arms. His fingers loosened s little on the ofher's hand and his body released more tension with every breath be mirrored off of Bucky. His head was full of cotton and his eyes hurt from sleepiness and the tears both shed and left inside. "And it doesn't matter. You're-- you're my best friend. I'll do anything I can to make sure you stay feeling safe and-- okay. Going to sleep now," he joked softly.

He smuggled into Bucky in his sleep. It was indeed natural.

Bucky didn't respond again, simply staying still and silent until Steve had got off to sleep and he could be left with his own thoughts. He raked through what memories he had ruthlessly, trying to pry loose if this had been a confession he had ever dealt with before. When he fought with the man on the helicarrier, had it been with the added insult that they had once been involved? Had he kissed those lips? Or had he rejected him? Had he known?

He couldn't remember a time when they had been together, but that didn't mean that it hadn't happened, he didn't remember a whole lot of things. It didn't matter, he wasn't going to take advantage of Steve, but how did he feel in return? Hard to tell. He felt an innate connection, he wanted to stay nearby, but was that attraction physical or just emotional?

He'd have to pay attention to himself over the next few days and weeks to analyse how he felt.

But for now, he just let Steve sleep. Only waking him when the sounds of life outside the window began to get loud, when the sun was bright in the window. They had to get out of here, Steve's future waited for him in Washington and there were too many people here who might see his face and recognise him as a dead man.

"Are we leaving?" It wasn't exactly good morning, but Bucky didn't often mince words now. "Before the funeral?"

Before the funeral? Steve was barely awake, groggy and almost having forgotten that there was a funeral to worry about. And why. He rolled over slightly. His whole one side stiff from having voluntarily curled up in the same position all night. It was rare he didn't wake up in some sort of pain so this was nothing new.

"I... I said my goodbyes," Steve said. Would it be terrible to miss the funeral? Would Bucky look down on him from Heaven and scowl to see that he decided to stay with another version of him instead?

Steve didn't think that was possible. He was sure Bucky would want him to help as much as he could.

"That's probably fair," Steve said softly. "And we should think about how to change some of that money on the way. It's... Odd. Some of it."

The best way to do that was through buying and selling illegally but he couldn't bring himself to say that, even if they would need a little capital to move.

They were going to need a car. Something that wasn't stolen.

His mind worked overtime a little.

"So we should go... Uh. Let me pack. I should have enough in the kitchen for... Oh. It might have gone bad by now." He hadn't even thought of that. "All right! We'll get breakfast as we go."

Bucky had once had a high moral standard, perhaps not quite as good as Steve, but certainly he followed the church's commandments and the laws of his country. But the man he was now had only one rule - no killing. Anything else was fair game and if he hadn't stolen and committed assault then his freedom would have been very short lived. He fully intended to break into a bank or store on the way to D.C. and he would do so as many times as necessary once they were there in order to keep them safe.

"I can get us a car while you pack."

He pulled himself up from the bed, naked form silhouetted in the morning light, and began to gather his clothes together.

"I can keep us safe if you trust me."

Steve might not like the choices that Bucky would make, but they would be effective.

"I do trust you," Steve said as he caught himself staring and very quickly got himself out of bed and towards the bathroom. "I just don't want to steal someone's car again. We won't be coming back so we can't return it." It would limit Bucky to stealing from dealerships if he wanted to go that way or maybe he could find someone to tell him a car for cash. It wasn't unheard of.

He shut the door behind him, utterly afraid of what was going through his head right now, and started the water in the sink to wash his face. His eyes weren't that great but he had seen the scars on Bucky's back and seen the outline of his.. His...

Oh God. Help him!

Ideally, Steve would spend the rest of his time in the bathroom, until he heard Bucky leave. He'd pack after that. It wasn't hard. He had most of his things packed from when he thought he was enlisting in the Army. And funny thing, that. He was still wearing his tags.

Steve refused to take them off. He just dressed over them, put his scant few possessions in some boxes and waited in the window for Bucky.

Bucky would take that trust as carte blanche to do what he needed in order to get them across country as safely and as quickly as he could. He dressed as swiftly as he could and then slipped out of the apartment, not minding Steve still being in the bathroom when he left.

He was gone approximately three hours.

When he came back it was in a pick-up truck, new and shining, with two duffel bags on the back seat. He beeped the horn outside the building and waited, but if Steve didn't come down then he would lock up and go up to find him. It might be best for his small friend if he didn't ask exactly how Bucky got the truck or what he had in the bags.

It was all about trust, after all.

Steve decided not to ask questions that he didn't want the answers to. It was part of the whole trust thing. He assumed that Bucky wouldn't rob or hurt people and that they would do their best to get everything settled in without too much lying and cheating. Sometimes it was necessary to break the rules, both religiously and secularly, but Steve wanted to keep that to a minimum.

He was grateful for the help with the boxes and his bags and sort of gob smacked at the truck. It was beautiful in the way all new things were and sure, he had some trouble climbing up into the cab but once he was there, the view was awesome. "We can see over most of the cars!" Steve exclaimed happily.

At least the ride to DC would only be a few hours. The roads weren't nearly as good as Bucky might remember but seven hours or so should get them to the capital.

It was new start. Something fresh.

Steve didn't watch the rearview mirror as they left. He wanted to move on from his old life completely.

Bucky was obviously an expert driver, gripping the stick and wheel in the way that only someone who had been driving their whole life could do, with the ease of a man who could probably take this truck and outrun cop cars if he absolutely had to. Not that he would if he didn't have to.

Perhaps he might not need to be on the run here, not when the people who were looking for him would be doing so seventy years in the future.

"Will you tell me about-- us? About me?"

It was a quiet question, maybe three hours into the drive. He was trying to remember all he could for himself, but he didn't have all the pieces.

Steve had been looking at the window, the glass down and his elbow stuck out into the sunshine. The wind had jostled up his hair and he felt more purpose now than he had in most of his life. Since Bucky appeared at his bedside a week ago, Steve had never felt like he was really capable of invoking chance. The first attempt hadn't worked out but he wasn't the sort of guy that backed down. His friend was dead and that was due to his failure. It would not happen again.

They were in the rural parts of Pennsylvania when Bucky spoke, away from the major roadways. They kept passing these little roadside restaurants and Steve was tempted to ask for a stop for lunch even if they could t really afford it. He'd only been out of New York one other time in his life: Camp Lehigh. And now? Just a few days later he'd left again. It was an adventure he needed to experience all of.

The question made him smile.

"We've been friends since we were kids. You saved me. Or helped me save myself I guess, from bullies. I think we've barely been apart since... Once when your family went to the Jersey shore for a week. And then when you were drafted. And-- You boxed. You taught me a little of that but you were the star. Oh and you loved to dance. I use to lay across your bed and watch you get ready for your dates. Everyone loved you. Old women, young gals from lower grades-- I think every guy we palled around with just wanted to be you."

Steve smiled back at Bucky, the sun making his eyes almost green.

Bucky tried to picture it, he used Steve's words as a sounding board to try and coax out memories from the blank canvas of his mind. It frustrated him so much to remember so little, to have forgotten who he should be and be so unsure who he would be in the future. He wanted to be the man that Steve remembered because he sounded happy, he sounded real.

"I don't remember."

He sounded disappointed. His eyes fixed on the road. He might have stopped there, the Soldier wasn't known for his conversation, but he was determined to push forwards because otherwise how would he ever progress?

"I remember a room and a man that looked like you. He had your hair and your eyes, he spoke in a Brooklyn accent and he smiled at me. I remember what he taught me to do."

And it sure as hell wasn't box.

Still sweet and naive, having never seen the world outside of postcards and what the movies told him tended to be on the rosy side of life, Steve had no idea what Bucky might have meant. He wanted to cultivate all of his memories, even ones that came from times that he himself didn't remember.

This could be a memory about the Captain America Steve, the one that no longer existed and might not exist again. It was important for Bucky to get a grasp on that side of himself too.

"What did he teach you?" Steve asked, turning around to face Bucky. The seats were wide enough that he could probably stretch out across the bench if he wanted to.

Perhaps in another year, another eighteen months, Bucky might have regained enough sense of self to know this wasn't the sort of story to tell someone else. But right now he was still mostly desensitised to it, the trauma buried under years of being conditioned to accept that it was as it was meant to be.

"He taught me not to move."

His fingers tightened on the wheel a little, tense, but his voice remained level.

"He told me don't move and then raised the temperature of the room until I fell from heat exhaustion and failed, then he took me to the reconditioning rooms for punishment. He told me don't move and lowered the temperature until I got hypothermia and fell, then he took me to the reconditioning rooms for punishment. He starved me for six days and then put a piece of bread in my mouth and told me not to move, and when I swallowed it he took me to the reconditioning rooms for punishment. He taught me not to move, so I could stand on broken legs and go without sleep for days. He taught me not to move."

It wasn't the lack of movement that was important, of course, it had been the obedience even in the face of pain or personal need, it was to drive home that orders had to come above literally anything else.

Not to move? That sounded like an odd skill to learn. Self discipline perhaps? Bucky always told him that, in boxing, discipline was the most important part of it. Not stance or how he held his hands, though they were important too. It was about being able to control yourself, your breathing, and how to slow down the external so the internal could work on muscle memory.

Of course, Steve's smile at the story was quickly wiped from his face as he continued. Steve stared at Bucky and then he turned to sit properly in his seat and just watch the scant traffic on barely paved roads as they drove south for awhile. Finally, he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

This is what Bucky's death saved him from. In part.

"Someone with hair like mine and eyes like mine... Is this what the serum is going to do to me? Is this why you said no testing? Are they going to experiment again...?" What he wanted to ask, and didn't, was if Captain America did the tortufe.

He didn't really understand the question. Would the serum make Steve into a man who would torture him? Or would the serum make it so that Steve himself needed to be tortured and experimented on? His brows drew together as he shifted gears and increased their speed, almost as if he were subconsciously running from it all.

"They never experimented on you, not that I know of."

If he ever found out that they had he would slaughter every single one of them. But as far as he knew, Steve had just had the serum injected and then had been trained up as Captain America.

"And I won't let them test on me again. I'm not going to be that-- I don't want to be the Soldier again."

Steve didn't feel better. That was probably not possible anymore anyway. He wasn't sure how to approach this. He couldn't just reach over and take Bucky's hand or hug him. There was a disconnect happening at the moment, half because Steve was afraid of asking more questions and half because Bucky didn't remember everything. Not about his past at least.

"Did I do that to you?" It was the thing he wanted to know most and the thing he was the most afraid of, for understandable reasons.

He couldn't imagine being that muscled man in the photo any more than he could imagine purposefully hurting Bucky to prove a point they he had power and that Bucky was better off just listening to him. Steve found himself digging a heel of his palm into his eye socket.

He wasn't crying. He didn't deserve to when Bucky wasn't upset about it. He just couldn't stop imagining it.

If this was just one lesson-- Steve nearly vocalized his disgust and his pain for the man next to him, clamping his teeth together quickly to stop himself from being an embarrassment.

"No."

Bucky honestly looked surprised at the question, it just hadn't occurred to him. Why would Steve think that he had been the one to teach him these hard lessons? He thought through it for a few moments before it all clicked into place, voice softening slightly into a low hummed baritone.

"All my handlers looked like you. Even when I didn't remember you, I still reacted the best-- I was more obedient to men with blond hair and blue eyes. But none of them were you, you thought I was dead."

He swung the pick-up into one of the new burger joints at the side of the road and dug out a handful of change, they needed breakfast and he needed to break up this tension.

"It was never you."

All of them. How many men with blond hair and blue eyes 'trained' Bucky Barnes, who listened to them primarily because of their friendship. Steve could feel his heart clicking, like it was a motor that just wouldn't start. It was terrifying, what men would do to other men to get their way. It was worse still that this happened to Bucky.

Nodding to let the other man know that he had heard and understood him, Steve followed Bucky out of the truck across the driver's side because his right hand was stronger than his left on using the handrail to climb down the step to the parking lot surface.

He looked up at Bucky, shorn but still lengthened hair to his cheekbones cast in a halo from the sun. He was beautiful. The world did to break him. Bucky was still standing. He had survived.

"I'm sorry for blubbering, Buck," Steve said as he used his sleeve on his cheeks. "It's probably good to talk about the stuff you remember though. Sorry I'm--" He shook his head. He didn't have the right to make this about him so he looked at the roadside restaurant they had pulled up to. A little dinner of sorts. They dotted the roadways but this one was relatively empty. Inside, Steve could see a waitress in a peach dress pulling the top off of the pie dish and brightened. Just a little. "I think we should have pie for breakfast."

Bucky hadn't intended to make Steve cry. He had rarely cried himself since the early days, and it seemed so strange to him that anyone would shed tears over something less than human. It made him want to reach out and pull Steve into his arms, public place not an issue to him, but he didn't. His arm raised about two inches before he aborted the idea and gestured instead for Steve to go on ahead of him.

"You really think it's good for me to talk about what I remember?"

Now would be the ideal time for Steve to get this out of him. The longer he went, and the more he remembered, the more it would hurt and the less likely he would be to discuss any of it. For now, the pain was still mostly buried under the practised and well-learned mask of neutrality.

"You can ask me questions if you want. In the truck, after pie."

"Can I? I mean definitely in the truck," Steve said as he held the door for Bucky. The waitresses called out to tell them that they could sit anywhere and he picked a spot close to the door, letting Bucky keep his back to the empty diner so he could see whoever came in. "As soon as there's pie in front of me, I'm going to have better things to do than talk," he grinned, eyes still red but demeanor much better, and left the little menus in the holder with the paper napkins. The waitress was already approaching, skirt to her calf and hair pulled up in a curled, high ponytail that was so popular. She was a little younger than Steve but her eyes were on Bucky.

No change there at least.

"What can I get you boys?" she asked with lips as shiny as the vinyl they were seated on. "Coffees to start?"

Steve answered, eyes brighter now. "Absolutely coffees-- What's the pie today?"

"Why it's good old apple pie," she said. "Can I help you to a slice?"

"Both of us," Steve insisted. "But I think my friend is going to need a little more than pie to hold him over."

The waitress seemed to find that delightful as she leaned Bucky's way. "What else can I get you? We do some mean bacon and eggs platters here."

This was now the second time that a woman had smiled at him excessively and paid him closer attention than Steve, and he honestly had no idea why. Steve was by far the more social one at the moment, Bucky still hadn't cracked a smile in about seventy years, he wasn't about to ask any of them to a social.

"Bacon and eggs, sure."

He needed a lot of fuel, and the protein in that would do him good. He could shovel down a few platefuls, his metabolism would need it. He didn't even realise the way that the waitress tracked the curve of his impressive muscles beneath his shirt.

"You boys heading to Washington?"

Bucky's head snapped up as if wondering if he needed to kill her, how could she know that? But she continued blithely on as if she hadn't noticed the threat at all. "Those celebrations they're having for the end of the war sound swell, shame I can't get the time off to go myself. Still, it's not like I've got a fella coming back." She said that pointedly, and Bucky tilted his head in mild confusion. Why would he need to know that she was unattached?

"We are," Steve said, taking the heat from Bucky to answer. He still had his dog tags on and though he didn't fish them out from his shirt, the chain was visible around his neck and he cupped them lightly. "We were almost through basic training when we heard. Never got ourselves a chance to see war but we want to welcome back everyone that served."

The waitress, who had the unassuming name of Sally according to her name tag, looked from Steve back to Bucky as if he might add in something. Bucky didn't seem to be too social, though, so she pressed her hand to the table, turning slightly away from Steve, to try to catch Bucky's eye. "No shame in that. I'm sure you would have done real well if you'd gone. Maybe have tended it all yourself."

Behind her, Steve was still grinning. She was pouring on the charm hard. If this had been the Bucky he was used to, he and the waitress would be going for a little drive while Steve ate his pie. Bucky was a good guy. He didn't push too hard but Steve was sure he had kissed at least three dozen girls already. He never minded being left behind for awhile.

The girls were fleeting. Bucky always came back to him in the end.

"You know, I do have a break coming to me--" Steve's smile dropped just a little. He'd been feeling too much for Bucky for it to be true any more that he didn't care about Bucky's conquests.

So he cleared his throat. "Actually ma'am. We're in a bit of a hurry? So just a coulple of plates of eggs and bacon, some coffees and that pie?"

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