fossilised | For Steve

"I thought we were sticking together," Steve blurted out with more emotion than he had planned for this whole conversation to encapsulate. He had already broken himself with the knowledge that doing the right thing meant missing out on something he wanted, and that he was giving Bucky the gift of freedom and himself the gift of his friend back.

But now he wasn't so sure. He wasn't so sure at all. The thought of actually losing Bucky was like being told that he was about to die. He didn't care if it was cliche or thst his older self had suffered watching Bucky fall. He didn't care at the semantics or at what was right--

No. That wasn't true. What was right was helping Bucky. And if helping Bucky meant keeping him? So be it.

"He said he can't track you. But... He can probably track me. This hospital put me on the map in a big way. He might try tracking down Erskine next. If we're going to run, and it's gotta be we, pal, we have to go now."

"You were going to give me to him."

The words came out as a low mumble and he stepped back and away from Steve, out of his arm's reach so that he couldn't be touched or constrained. He didn't know why that hurt so much, but it felt oddly like being traded away. Like his humanity was being sapped again, a commodity to be passed between Steves without his consent.

But then the rest of what Steve said kicked in, seeped into his shocked brain, and he lifted his eyes to meet steady blue ones in surprise.

"You said-- I thought you were giving me to him?"

Stupid. Repetition. Couldn't help it.

It was a good thing that Steve hadn't been reaching for him. He would have stumbled and fallen. He paused instead at the foot of the bed and wet his lips, trying just to breathe and compose himself. "You're a human being, Buck. I can't give you to anyone. I was just telling you that he came here trying to help you." This whole thing was exhausting, but if Bucky was laying in bed brain damaged, Steve would be right there with him just the same. It didn't matter how tiring it could be. Being with Bucky made every inch gained worthwhile.

He ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, arm carefully bracing the other before he did something to hurt it further. The swimminess in his eyes didn't fade at all and the sickness he had felt every single time he thought he was losing Bucky just stayed half mast in his throat.

"I thought you would want to go home with him is all. I'll be fine if you do. But it's your decision. Everything since you got here is your decision. If you want to leave... If you want to leave me here, you can do that too. But that hurts, Buck. And I'm going to miss you. I just want you to be happy. Even if it isn't with me. I just can't be a burden for you, pal. I don't have what he has to offer."

"I said I wanted to stay with you." He finally took a step back towards Steve, his eyes so dark that they almost seemed black instead of blue, intense and focused. "I meant you, not him. One Steve isn't interchangeable with another, just like I'm not the Bucky you've lost."

He couldn't explain why he wanted this Steve, why he felt safe at his side rather than with the Steve he knew. It wasn't fair on the other Steve, and he likely would have come to love being by his side again, but he had latched on here now.

"He wants to take me back, they're hunting me there. I want to stay here, I'm safe with you."

Isn't he?

That tracked back path towards him was a comfort that Steve couldn't deny. He didn't reach out for Bucky, but he did lightly touch the mattress beside him. He could sit if he wanted to. Or he could stand if that was better. Steve wasn't going to judge or make demands. "You might be safer with him," he confided, mostly because he couldn't tell a lie to Bucky of all people. "He could protect you better than I can. And I'm not telling you that so you'll go. I... I don't want you to go. I don't want that to effect your decision either way, though."

He wasn't sure how much influence he happened to have on Bucky, and he didn't want to do anything he might regret.

"Can you.. Why is he hunting you? Why would anyone?" Bucky had not fully explained what had happened to Him. And maybe they needed to have that conversation. But not here. "Put a pin in that. We need to go. He might be watching."

Bucky stepped right up into Steve's personal space and just lifted him up into his arms as if he were a dame being swept off his feet. He felt light, barely any additional weight at all. He would be able to feel Bucky's heart beating with his head so close to his chest, a flighty and fast thud of fear.

"I'm gonna run, hold on as much as you can."

It was all the warning he gave before he literally smashed through the second storey window of Steve's room and began running across the rooftops. He pushed himself to the top speed his serum enhanced body was capable of, vaulting and twisting to parkour along the rooftops and then down into an alleyway, only stopping when he had reached the apartment that he had rented while he had been out of the hospital.

About thirty miles run in half an hour.

Wow. "You don't need to show off for me," Steve said after Bucky had literally walked him across the threshold of what was supposed to be their home now. He was breathless and wind blown, though he'd had some sense to cuddle under Bucky's coat to protect himself from glass and bugs and any number of things that could and did hit him.

Bucky's heartbeat had never risen above a slightly increased clip, as if he had been running up a flight of stairs perhaps, but nothing more. How fast could Bucky actually run if he really opened up? Steve was almost afraid to ask.

He stood in bare feet on thick carpet, unusually luxurious for an apartment, and lightly patted down his hair to be more presentable. He was still in a hospital gown, a soft cotton with loose ties across the back to keep the garment in place, and he made sure to keep his back to a wall as he made a tentative first exploration of what was obviously their place.

Steve's bag and boxes were here, just waiting to be unpacked.

It made the blond brighten, even if they had not had the best day or so.

"Is this Washington?" Yes he knew they needed to talk, but come on! This whole thing was so exciting!

It was probably unnecessary. It was unlikely that the other Steve would have approached him or even followed, but he couldn't take the chance that they would be watched. Much better to make a clean getaway for now, but the safety of this time had shattered. No longer was he alone here from his time, but the future-- present-- whatever it was had started to invade. How long before SHIELD and HYDRA tracked him down too? How long before he was on the run here just as much as before?

He let Steve wander around the apartment, but he stayed by the front door to bolt it and then wedge it from their side to make it much harder to break into. The apartment itself wasn't big, though it did have two bedrooms, but it was well insulated with a real electric fire in the main room and thick windows to keep the chill out.

"Yeah."

Bucky wasn't about to volunteer information or conversation, retreating back into himself as he had been when they had first joined forces.

Steve didn't read into the presence of two bedrooms. It made sense and in a way, made him feel better. He wasn't afraid of Bucky hurting him again, but he was afraid for his own propensity. He became suddenly very well aware of some of the things he had said to Bucky recently and he sighed as he returned back to the stoic man guarding the door.

The embarrassment left him in favor of being afraid of Bucky's sudden slide backward.

"Can we talk? It's all right if you don't want to but I need to understand what's going on here." And maybe get dressed but with his arm the way it was, he was a little afraid to try.

The medication wouldn't last forever and the ache in his bones was already back.

Bucky didn't have any medication that might take the edge off the pain for Steve, but he could go and fetch something if it became necessary. Hopefully, now that the arm was in a long cast and the bones set, it might not be quite so unbearable as long as Steve took it easy and didn't jar it too much.

"--you can ask questions."

It was the best he could do. It wasn't that he didn't want to volunteer information for Steve, perhaps he would be the only one that Bucky would feel comfortable with, but he couldn't do it without prompts. He just wasn't sure where to begin, what was relevant and what wasn't.

He slipped down and sat against the door on the floor, ready if Steve wanted to question him.

The... Floor. Okay. Steve couldn't really get down on the floor right now since he didn't thing he could get up, so be just dragged one of the chairs over. He was glad that this place came at least partially furnished, though they were going to need some bedding and pillows and some dishes and pans too.

But that would be for later.

Little Steve sat with his knees together, he wasn't wearing much after all, on the chair. He leaned forward with his good arm, propping himself up against his knee. None of these questions would be easy so he went with the most need to know.

"Tell me why he's hunting you. You escaped... Whatever they made you, right? Tell me how you did that." Bucky's bullet points were factual at least. He listened at the blunt remarks of how they had fought on an airship over the river. How Steve fell and Bucky saved him before running.

Steve's cheeks were pink with delight.

It was a good story. A really good story.

"So now... How did you end up here? Where did you go, after you saved him?"

Strangely enough, Bucky's minimalist way of speaking seemed to tell the story better than full descriptors, just enough to let Steve see himself in the action and emotion of the whole thing before it was over with. He remembered that acutely, at least, he hadn't been wiped since then and he had no trouble making new memories.

"I went underground for a few weeks, hid, in case HYDRA were looking for me. Watched the news, saw what happened with SHIELD. Found the Smithsonian, it was a little segment at the end of the news, mentioning a theft of a costume from the Captain America exhibit. I went, saw-- there's a whole stand on Bucky Barnes. I was just leaving when I found myself here."

He scrubbed a hand over his face.

"Don't know how, just went black all of a sudden then I was here. And nobody knew where I was."

And wasn't that the crux of why he feared the other Steve? He was a connection to that life, that world, that sought him out so cruelly.

"I think, and since I'm talking about myself here, that if you told him that, he'd let you alone. He said he failed you... And I know how that feels." Bucky was dead because he had failed him. Then again, Bucky would never be tortured to the extent this man had been tortured for the same reason. It was almost too complicated and Steve's heart wasn't in really sitting down to think about what he did or could have done differently. Not yet.

He didn't let Bucky dwell on it either.

Instead, he switched topics to something a little more gruesome. "It.. What do you remember about your time with the Soviets? You have such terrible nightmares, Buck. Stuff that makes you react really violently... The guys at the barrack, you thought that they were attacking you... Last night? I think you thought I was one of your handlers. I need to know what to do if that happens again.You keep speaking in Russian and I don't understand it. I need to learn."

He didn't want to risk it. Part of him thought that once he was face to face with Steve, any Steve, that he'd have trouble turning his back again. He was inexorably drawn to Steve Rogers like a moth to a flame, as if nothing else in his life would ever matter as much.

"You want to learn Russian?"

Bucky really didn't like the idea of Steve learning that language, turning himself into one of his handlers properly. "I can tell you what I remember, it's not everything. Is that okay?" Now was the right time to ask, now when he didn't have the emotional resonance by the surface to feel the full trauma of what had been done to him. Another six months, another year, and he would never be able to speak about it for fear that it would break him. Now, it would be almost like a mission report, uncomfortable but achievable.

Steve did not want to learn Russian but he thought that it was necessary, if only to figure out what to do when Bucky was catatonic and mumbling. He had no intention of being another handler. Not ever. Ruling Bucky was not his goal. It would ruin them both for each other.

Steve eased back against the chair, trying to explain why it was important for him to know the things Bucky said. "You scared me last night. Not because-- it wasn't that. My arm was an accident. But you wouldn't respond to me at all. I didn't know how to bring you back from that. Maybe you couldn't understand me either..."

He rubbed his knuckles against his eyelids. His eyes itched from previously shed tears and entirely too much worry at what the next few days might bring to them both.

Bucky looked so vulnerable sitting there. He looked so lost, even if his eyes were hard and unrelenting. Steve didn't know how to fix that at first, but at least Bucky offered to tell him what happened to him. Steve didn't know if he should pry and he wasn't sure how he'd handle it. But this was important.

"Anything you want to tell me is safe and will stay with me and only me," he stressed.

Bucky drew his legs up so that his knees were against his chest, his arms loose over them, the metal one still hidden beneath his jacket and the gloves he wore almost constantly now. It was difficult with Steve saying such ambiguous things like 'anything you want', it was so much harder for him to pick through than a direct order. But a part of him understood that Steve wasn't going to order him no matter how long he waited, and so he needed to try and move past it.

He could behave as though it were an order.

That was easier, because in his head he could hear it as a mission report request. It allowed him to detach from the situation and talk about it as though he were clinically describing someone else, voice level and calm. Though his hands began to tremble more and more as he continued, something he didn't notice.

He told Steve about all the ways he remembered to break a man. About the waterboarding, the rape, the beatings. About being flayed, burned, frozen, cut. About being starved and dehydrated, being drugged, being conditioned. About the trigger words, though not what they were, and about how he had been taught unequivocally to be less than human. The Asset. The Soldier.

It was truly amazing how desensitizing it was to listen the longer Bucky spoke. He wasn't holding anything back, giving enough, clinical detail for Steve's mind to fill in the rest. Though there had initially been outrage and then sorrow, Steve's face settled into a flatness that was reminiscent of police or soldiers. If a man who saw and heard these things could not distance himself from them, there would never be a time when he could fully and surely so his job.

The rape was what really got to Steve. Here he had been admitting his less than platonic feelings for a man who had already been brutalized by other men. Sometimes for training. Sometimes just because they controlled the strings and wanted to enjoy themselves.

He had to be done with that. He could not bring it up again and he needed to get help for it. Immediately.

Steve looked exhausted when Bucky stopped speaking and let his good hand fall out of his lap before he stood. "Nothing like... That will never happen to you again. Neither of us would ever allow it. I don't.... I don't know how to fix you. But I'm going to figure it out. Because you're a person, all right? And no one deserves to be what you were."

By the time he had finished literally four hours had gone by and his hands were trembling so hard that they seemed almost to be vibrating. But his expression remained calm, his voice remained level, and his eyes remained that hollow stare that he had given to Steve ever since his return.

"I don't know if I can be fixed."

That wasn't meant to be depressed or self defeating, it was more just an honest concern. He had come a long way already from what he had been, but truly being completely fixed seemed like something far beyond his reach.

"It doesn't matter, I just want to be free. I don't want to kill, and I want to keep you safe, the rest of it isn't important."

"It's important to me," Steve insisted, eyes softening as he blinked. He saw that tremble and while he would have normally crawled over there to offer a hug, that would not be happening again until he could control himself. He was sick and he didn't need to give that to Bucky or contaminate him in anyway. He did, however, move from the chair to the floor, not close enough so that they could touch but there if Bucky needed him.

Right now, Steve was just a mission. Keep him safe. Stay free. These were objectives. They were expressed coldly, stoically.

His head touched the wall beneath the window beside the door and he tilted his face up to Bucky.

"We are safe here," he said, unsure of how he felt about the other Steve's sudden intrusion. "There's no one really after you. Steve won't take you anywhere if you don't want him to. I know you're worried about it. But I know myself."

Bucky had no idea what was going through Steve's mind when it came to him, especially not about his sexual attraction and what it might do to Bucky after he had been abused so soundly for so many years. He just knew that Steve was keeping his distance where he hadn't been before, and that caused a furrow to appear between his brows.

"He followed me, other people could have too. They might. I had to run before, hide, I didn't think I had to here."

Why would he? HYDRA of this time would have no idea who Bucky Barnes was and who he was meant to become, the Soviets had no notion that they were to create a Soldier, and SHIELD didn't even exist. He had the chance to exist somewhat peacefully, but Steve had shattered all that by showing up.

"I just want to be left alone."

Not from him, this Steve, but from everyone else.

It was actually a fear that Steve hadnt thought about. Someone could have ridden on the coat tails of Captain America an if that was true, they had the means to capture Bucky and take him from Steve. There was a current of fear that ran straight through Steve as he stared at Bucky.

"Then we can't stay," he said immediately. "No where close. He was tracking me. I... Bucky, if it's safer for you to go on without me, you should. I don't know what else to do." Other than give up himself and change identities. But how? They didn't have unlimited resources. Steve was almost literally dirt poor and he didn't have a single source of income that wasn't from the government.

He pressed his hand to his face.

"I've done this to you. Buck, maybe the problem has always been me." He never went down this path, he never was this sad and alone and willing to brow beat himself because everyone else did it for him. But he'd never imagined his friend so tortured for so long before either and that could change someone's outlook on life. "I need you to be safe," he said, his voice finally breaking. There was too much emotion in his head and his heart for this conversation but if Bucky needed to go, Steve wouldn't cling on.

The problem had never been Steve, why would he think that? Even the one from the future, it wasn't exactly Steve that was the issue, it was what he represented and what might have followed him here. It was having to face up to all that had been done to him and realise that he might be a little bit more broken than could ever actually be put back together again.

"Why are you saying this?" He didn't understand it, what had he done to break a spirit that he had previous thought of as indomitable? It wasn't right, wasn't fair. "Why are you blaming yourself? I didn't blame you."

How could any of this be Steve's fault? He had never even known Bucky was alive, and as soon as he had then he had broken him free of his programming. And then this Steve had tried to look out for him, both of the Steves had.

What could he do for Bucky? Steve n get gave up and he certainly wasn't going to give up now, but it in was his head that there was only one problem and one factor that kept making Bucky's life difficult for him and that was him. He wasn't so foolish as to believe himself above all of that and he was trying to help in the only way he knew how.

By being selfless.

Funny how selflessness always amounted to selfishness though? The corners of Steve's lips trembled. "I know you didn't, pal. I'm trying to think big picture here. I'm going to slow you down. I'm going to be a way for them to track you." He was a liability. He hated to think of it that way but it was true.

Steve closed his eyes and bowed his head.

"I know there's always something more a person can do, and that looking backward doesn't give you insight into what's coming all the time but I can't just sit here and not tell you what I think just because I'm scared you'll leave. You need to have all of the options. All of them. Even the ones that don't include me."

Steve had the weakest body and the strongest will of anyone alive. Past or present or future.

"We have to come up with a way to make sure you keep your freedom. And that means looking at all the options."

Bucky still didn't want an awful lot for himself. He didn't ask for a roof over his head or regular food, he didn't ask for health or happiness, all he wanted was freedom and Steve. It seemed, therefore, the height of cruelty that Steve should suggest he might be better off away even if there were logical reasons behind it.

A low almost growl escaped Bucky's throat and he surged to his feet in one graceful movement, like a predatory big cat that had spotted prey. He grasped Steve by the shoulders, cautious of his broken arm, and manoeuvred him up to his feet too to press him back against the wall. Close, bodies near enough flush, and deep blue eyes meeting much more vivid ones intensely.

"It's not an option."

For once he was giving the orders, but he needed Steve to understand.

"You're the anchor that keeps me human and the reason to stay free. I don't want to run alone any more, I don't want to leave you behind. I don't even remember you, most of you, and I don't know why... but I need you. I'm not letting you go."

There were two things running congruently through Steve’ mind as he found himself standing on his toes between the wall and a wad of impossibly solid muscle. Firstly, he wondered if he was about to have Bucky lose himself or try to intimidate him. It would make sense if either happened. Bucky mentioned a trigger and Steve didn’t know what it was and might have managed it without realizing. He had only himself to blame for that. Bucky, he knew, would never raise a hand to him in anger and would never intentionally hurt him. That made the gentle way he lifted him a bit suspect to that particular theory. If Bucky was being gentle now, he’d continue to be.

With fear ruled out almost immediately, Steve tried to do the same with the flash of desire he felt racing up his spine. He told himself that the adrenaline he was feeling was the fight or flight response, that he was amped up and needing a release of energy, even if the reason was not entirely the truth.

"I don't want you to let me go." Steve watched Bucky's face, eyes wide and confused by the betrayal of his body. He shook, no. Trembled. And that was so much worse and came with so much more baggage. What was he supposed to do to fix this?

Steve swallowed and looked up at Bucky.

“I want you help you remember,” he replied, trying to be calm. It didn’t quite work. “Or if you can’t… You can get to know me again.” He would not again suggest that Bucky leave him. Not even for his own good.

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