fossilised | For Steve

Steve smiled without judgement or fear or doubt. His hand settled around his glass of water and he took a sip before he answered. "Listen pal, I don't expect anything from you other than being true to yourself. Neither of us are the same person we use to be before the war and before you went away. Neither of us can ever be the same guy again. I'm not expecting you to go back to who you use to be. I just want to help you find some happiness and stability in who you are now. You're still a good guy though. I know you are."

He took a thoughtful bite for a moment and then looked up again. He didn't see Bucky Barnes, the easy going girl magnet. He didn't see what other people always saw. In fact, he never had. He saw a guy who cared about him and went out of his way to help him.

And that was all still there. Every ounce of who Bucky was still survived in who Bucky is now.

"I want you to see what I see when I look at you.... And here I go again with the poetry." He rubbed his neck, embarrassed. "Sorry about that."

Edited 2017-02-14 22:20 (UTC)

That was exactly what he needed to hear right then. Not some optimism about how he would get better, or some empty words about having hope, but an honest reassurance that he wasn't expected to become anything. He was just meant to do his best and keep trying and that would be enough.

That earned Steve another one of his rare smiles, this one actually lighting up his face into a proper grin. It looked strange there, as if he hadn't grinned in decades, but it also made him look younger and less damaged.

"Don't apologise," he said, smile fading already but into a peaceful neutral expression rather than a blank one. "Thank you, Steve."

For everything.

Two days passed too quickly. Steve had pressed his bed up to the wall that he shared with Bucky and stayed close to it, in case he heard Bucky start to have a nightmare. He wanted to be able to go running. But the other man slept peacefully and Steve had too. He insisted that they go on walks and they even went down to the parade to celebrate the end of the war. Bucky did all right in the crowds of people but Steve didn't press it and make him stay too long. Besides, he wore his voice out cheering for the men paraded in front of them on the backs of jeeps and in all sorts of cars.

There wasn't any problems at all until the morning they were meant to go back to the hotel where Steve was staying. The younger Steve had already been up and was making coffee, Bucky in the shower, when a knock came to the door. Steve paused, thinking it was odd that someone would bother them here, but he went to the door and looked out through the peephole to see a man and a woman, both dressed in military uniforms. The had a little satchel with them and Steve was sure that they were coming to collect donations for the veteren's fund.

"One moment!" He called through the door before heading back to the jar where they kept their money, pulling out a generous twenty dollars. Soldiers deserved more than that but Steve didn't want to draw suspicion even as he gave a great deal.

He had just made it to the door when something dawned on him. That woman's hair wasn't right. A woman in the army would have her hair up in a bun and pinned out of her face in curls. The one at the door had hers down and it was a strange, auburn color. Steve paused. And that pause caused the people at the door to get antsy and start shooting through the flimsy wood.

Those two days had felt like a welcome respite. Bucky had gone with Steve to the parades because he could tell it was important to him, and he had hidden how tense the crowds had made him. He was good at that, good at pushing it down when he had warning and when he had to. But it was relaxing in other ways, he managed to sleep mostly soundly thanks to knowing Steve was so nearby, and it was a comfort each time he looked over and saw the smaller man still there.

And then the sound of gunshots filled the air.

Bucky was across the room and tackling Steve in a second, shielding him with his body and not caring if his weight caused any bruises or discomfort for now. Steve would feel a hell of a lot worse than discomfort if he got shot.

"Stay low, get under the coffee table and don't move," he snapped, rolling up enough to push Steve in that direction, eyes already hard, clearly ready for the fight. His hand dipped into the waistband of his pants and pulled out a knife, always hidden there just in case. He rounded the doorway to keep free of the path of any bullets; then, with a sudden and swift movement, he kicked the wood free of the jamb aiming to hit the two with the door itself.

There was something different about these two, something that would take Bucky a few minutes to put together as they broke free of what might have been a devistating blow. These were two Soldiers. He had trained them himself in Siberia for years, working on their combat skills as other departments worked on a new method of dehumanization. They didn't need another Asset. They needed soldiers. And soldiers needed to keep some sense of self.

The woman countered a hit in her direction. The man disarmed Bucky with a combination blow his partner made possible by blocking Bucky's momentum with her hip. Two against one was unfair odds, but luckily, the Steve who was not under the table came crashing through the hallway window, shield first. He had no idea that Bucky lived here. He had been following two HYDRA agents since that morning and they led him here. The shield cut.a path between them and between Bucky, ricocheting from the wall and back to his hand.

"Bucky? You and Steve all right?"

As soon as he saw that these were two of the Soldiers that he had helped train, his entire form shifted. He shuttered Bucky behind his eyes and brought out the Soldier in himself because he would need that in order to win. They were good, but he was better, always had been. He couldn't risk them getting back to their masters, this was one case where kill had to be better than capture.

He moved in a way that the newly arrived Steve had seen before, that fluid and deadly grace with the speed of a striking snake, a whirr of blade and muscle, but that the Steve under the table had never seen. This was the Soldier who had fought with Steve in the roadway and nearly bested him.

The question went unanswered, but the blur of the shield gave him the opportunity to leap forwards into the distraction and slam his blade towards the windpipe of the man while attempting to scissor kick the woman back towards Captain America.

Through the table legs and the sliver of open doorway, Steve saw blood. He saw blood rise in an arc from the left side of the jamb to the right. It was momentarily halted by one of Bucky's arms, countering his thrust with the blade into a tearing motion that knocked both opponents off balance. A gun was fired again and, feeling useless, Steve covered his head with his uncasted hand. The drop ceiling fell in a burst down on him. The table protected him from being further injured.

"Buck, no!" Steve called out, grabbing the woman by the wrist to twist the gun from her hand and wrench her arm towards her shoulder. "We need to question them!" His attempt to unarm her didn't stop her from tossing him over her shoulder and into Bucky. He snapped his shield back at her as she made a run for it, while he was sprawled on the ground in a pile. He jumped to his feet to sweep her leg just as she was standing again and this time she sent him through the wall and into the rubble just in front of where his younger self was trying to dig himself out of.

That left the woman to face off with Bucky agsin and she cracked her neck with a smirk. She said something to him in Russian, calling him a traitor before she charged him again, speaking the first trigger word with a growl.

At least the man was dead, his blood on Bucky's hands making the handle of the blade slippery and more difficult to control. Not so difficult that he couldn't do it, he did have a lot of experience with blood slicked weapons, after all. The blur of the fight, the noise of the crashing masonry and gunshots, it was all so familiar to him and pulled him in like quicksand.

Right up until that first trigger word left her lips.

Bucky snarled, lips pulling back over his teeth and an honest to God growl escaping him loud enough for anyone to hear, as he launched himself at her in a new desperation and panic. His entire being was focused on her now, taut and fuzzed at the edges, as his consciousness began to splinter.

"Stop! Stop!"

This couldn't be happening.

And she did stop. No matter how tough the super soldier serum was, none of them were invulnerable the way that Thor was. None of them were unstoppable like the Hulk. A soldier,, who was not as highly trained as the Asset, who did not have as much to lose as Bucky, was not going to be able to stop another in a frenzy.

Captain America got his bearings just a little too late and made it to Bucky's side a little later than that. He'd never seen someone torn apart like that and he'd studied the Hulk's rages once the battle for New York has ended so he would always, always know what his teammate was capable of.

He didn't immediately touch Bucky. He knew better than that, but he did call his name. "Bucky, it's done, it's over!" He repeated the words in the same order for a long time until he felt something push between him and the busted door jamb. He wasn't sure if he was proud or afraid as he watched the other Steve take Bucky's blood stained hand in his own.

He said his name too. Just more softly. More sweetly. "Come back to me."

The Winter Soldier had always been a weapon. Not just an expert with every weapon ever made, or every vehicle, or every language, but a weapon in his own right. He knew where the nerves were to deaden a limb, or the exact place to hit to crush a windpipe, or how to tear someone limb from limb quite literally with his bare hands. She barely looked human any more by the time he was done, spattered with blood and trembling.

He felt as though he were a hundred miles away, he could hear Steve as if he were underwater and the words meant nothing to him, he could feel the touch on his hand as if it were a lifeline being tossed to him, but he was struggling against the current in his attempt to reach it.

"я потерял..."

His voice was tight and small, his entire body so tense that it seemed as though the wrong movement would shatter him into brittle pieces.

"English, remember? You haven't taught me Russian yet," the soft voice said, trembling now because he had stupidly looked down at the mess at Bucky's feet. He was honestly surprised that his stomach was so strong, and he tried to pull Bucky back into the apartment. There would be cops there soon enough. There had to be some people at home and not out working. There was a lot of gunfire. There had been a lot of shouting. And now they were in a lot of trouble if they didn't leave here soon.

But first, Steve needed to get Bucky back from wherever it was he had lost himself.

The Captain just watched the pair, half dumbstruck and half incredulous that this was happening. He'd been willing to treat Bucky with kid gloves but this version of him had waded right into the muck to pluck Bucky out of it again. It was strangely gratifying. And it hurt just the same. He didn't try to rush the process, though. Instead, he bent to check the bodies and take their weapons. He wanted to clean them out before the police arrived.

And that left Steve to do the hard work.

"I've got you."

The two Soldiers who were now nothing more than meat had been highly trained, and so Steve would find a veritable arsenal on each of their corpses. Guns, both modern and period specific, knives, even explosives. They also carried surveillance equipment, ear-pieces, and trackers. Someone would already know they were dead and would be coming for them, someone worse than the police.

At least Bucky-- the Soldier-- whoever he was, let Steve pull him back into the apartment without fighting him on it. He walked jerkily as if he had forgotten how to control his limbs properly, or like he had retreated so far inside himself that he couldn't figure out how to get back to the surface again.

He could still hear the first trigger word like a razor against his consciousness, dissonant and threatening in a way that made him want to be sick. His breathing was a shallow pant, a panic attack without any other external symptoms.

"Can't..."

He can't do this. He had said he wanted only two things, not to kill and to stay with Steve. He just broke that first one twice over, what if he really was a threat to Steve? What if Captain America had been right and he would just end up hurting the smaller and more fragile version of himself. As if he had suddenly become aware that he was smearing blood onto Steve where their hands met, he jerked away in one sharp and desperate motion to hit the opposite wall like a cornered and feral dog.

That blood on Steve's hand was so bright, he couldn't tear his eyes from it. He did that, he had marked and defiled and hurt Steve.

Steve wasn't an idiot. He knew that Bucky had killed these people because they had come for him. He knew from the way that they all had fought that the two enemies were like Captain America and Bucky...highly trained, infused with Erskine's serum. He was very well aware that they probably had to die to that they could be safe. That didn't mean that any of this was right, but he'd empty his stomach later and pray so very hard for their souls when he had a moment alone. His eyes were solely on Bucky right now.

He didn't let Bucky retreat, following him to that wall with his cast and his bloody hand and warm eyes that were narrowed so finely down into pinpricks. "You can.. You promised to stay with me and you promised to protect me. Well, you've protected me. And now I need you back," he said, lips pressed into a line.

He paid no attention to the fizzle of light in the hallway. He couldn't see the projection anyway, it was behind the wall. Tony Stark, image made almost entirely of blue light (he could have projected himself in full color but he wanted to pay homage to Star Wars) scoffed with his hands in his pockets as he glanced around the hallway. "I love what you've done with the place, Cap, but... Uh... Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Bucky's back pressed flush against the wall when Steve approached him as if the smaller man was somehow a threat, predator and prey reversed, eyes wide and frightened. Look at what he had done, the smell of metallic copper was strong, there was blood everywhere, and Steve... look at Steve.

He opened his mouth to say something else, perhaps an apology or another plea, but for the first time the enormity of all of this struck him. Not behind a careful layer of detached numbness, but the horror of what he had done and what they had made him, it was all writ so clear in the bright red blood on Steve's hand. So all that came out was a strange half choked noise, before he ended up doubled on his hands and knees being sick all over the floor, shaking so hard that his teeth were chattering.

Out in the hallway, the older Steve rubbed a hand across his eyes looking tired and sad down to his bones. "Hey, Tony-- no, it's good timing, really. We need you to get us out of here, three for extraction, and I need a floor of the tower locked down just for Bucky. Not a prison, but private, he's... not doing well."

"Hold onto your panties," Tony muttered, looking as if he was pushing buttons in midair. The projection didn't show what he was doing but it was likely calibration. He shifted screens from one side of his work station to the other, upped a few sliders and talked all the way through it as if he didn't need to concentrate since he was breaking a dimensional barrier. Yeah. He'd figured that part out after sending Cap to where Bucky had gone. The tachyons had been an interesting way to tease Banner out of hiding too. Win-win for Tony Stark. "No one's coming to the Tower. Sorry. I like my privacy. But we already have the Hulk proof building-- wow. You're not even really here and you're giving me looks, Banner? Fine. Whatever. Pout all you like but when the Hulk wants to swim and use the gym equipment you're gonna be thanking me. Rogers, I have it set to beam you straight to where Banner is, he's moving buildings now. But uh-- three?"

He didn't like the sound of three people here. It wasn't impossible but he didn't calculate for the mass of three individuals.

"This isn't a save people from your past mission. I know you're sad about everyone you know and love being dead but that's just life. You're like a hundred years old. People die. Fine-- you know what? Whatever. I'm reading three life signs in your immediate area. Two minute warning and then we're going to do a tug."

Tony's image faded away, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts for a moment.

The other Steve was so much more proactive at the moment, falling to his knees beside Bucky to slip an arm around his chest and lightly stroke his hair with fingers that just about could reach thanks to the cast. "I've got you," he was repeating softly, over and over.

Even after knowing him for a few years, Steve sometimes couldn't get over quite how much Tony talked and how fast, never letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. It was annoying, but it was just part of who the man was, so he didn't get a chance to explain the other person coming along was himself and was the only way he had managed to get Bucky to even agree to come.

He slipped back into the main room, heart constricting painfully when he saw what a state Bucky was in and with a mixture of pride and jealousy that his smaller self seemed to have it contained, like a trainer with a wounded animal.

Bucky retched twice more and then forced himself up to his knees, only so that he could almost fall forwards to rest his forehead on Steve's shoulder. He was still trembling, unable to stop, but at least his quiet words were English.

"Please don't let me hurt you, please-- please..."

Steve paid no attention to anything else besides Bucky until he felt his feet start to unravel, as if every inch of himself was slowly being unwound like string from a sweater. It didn't hurt and it wasn't exactly unpleasant but that said, the sensation itself was so crazy and unfamiliar that it left Steve panicking. "What is this?!" he managed to get out before his lungs were taken from him, throat to follow and finally he found himself standing with his arms still around a mostly completed Bucky in a pristine white room with too much glass and chrome. The shift from warm colors to starkness actually hurt his eyes.

But so did watching Bucky's shoulders and head wind back up in tendrils of spiraling purple and gold.

"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners--" Steve prayed, clinging to Bucky as he had been clung to before they left. There was no one else in the room, though one scientist was fixing the calibration from another room and preparing to pull the last figure from the alternate dimension. Captain America would be appearing in front of Steve in a moment, from the feet up, in a terrifying way that looked so real-- nothing like the movies with their terrible production values and prop design.

Another scientist was on his way. The flight from New York's Avengers Tower to the compound at top speed took just over ten minutes.

"It's all right," the older Steve said to sooth his younger self. "We're back in 2014. This is normal." Probably.

Somebody probably should have warned Bucky that this was going to happen.

All he saw were white walls and fluorescent lights, as well as scientists behind the glass in another room. HYDRA. This was so similar to all the testing chambers, to the recalibration room, to everything that he had escaped and never wanted to go back to again as long as he lived. They had found him with the other Soldiers and now he was here and, worse, so was Steve. Both Steves.

He snapped.

Every nerve in his body was singing, a demand to protect Steve at all costs, and he simply began moving. It didn't take any effort at all to break free of Steve, the man was smaller and weaker, and to move to the glass. His arm pulled back and punched the divider over and over, vibranium meeting reinforced glass furiously. His expression was set in a blank state, eyes furious.

"On my God! Bucky, stop!" Steve darted forward, shield in hand, to plant it between fist and window. Doctor Banner was very good at controlling himself but they did not need a Code Green on top of a rampaging super soldier and a delirious, confused looking version of himself stumbling over towards them. Oh honestly. Did he always just use to run into danger, even before he could handle it?!

The answer, of course, was yes. He didn't stop him from wrapping his undamaged arm around Bucky, though it would do little good, and focused instead on getting Bucky to calm down.

"That's Doctor Banner!" Steve grunted as he managed to push off, and sustain a few blows, with the shield. His back was to the splintered glass which was proving itself very resilient in the face of vibranium. Tony might be onto something here when it came to Hulk-proofing. "He's one of the team, he helped to bring you back, Buck!"

A Steve Rogers sandwich was probably what a lot of his fans wanted for themselves during private moments, and that was what Bucky was getting now as one Steve pressed to his back and the other gripped his fist.

He couldn't stop. Something inside him had snapped and the part of his mind that was Bucky had retreated beneath the layers of the Soldier in order to protect himself from what was coming. He was nothing but a creature of instinct now born from terror and anger, looking like a doll rather than a real human being for the lack of emotion in his eyes and on his face even as he struggled against both men.

He didn't even realise that he was muttering in a long and low unbroken stream of Russian, eyes fixed over the top of Steve's head to where the scientist stood behind the glass breathing deeply.

Bruce flicked on the tannoy system into the room when he could be sure that he had calmed himself down sufficiently. "Sergeant Barnes, I'm not going to hurt you. Please try to calm down. Steve-- Jesus, is that another Steve?"

God Almighty, that was not good. Tony wasn't going to be happy, he wasn't happy.

"Really long story, Bruce," Steve grunted, not even paying attention to the other him thst had been easily shaken off and was chsrging right back in, as if he had any hope of keeping Bucky calm. He heard his voice over the muttered Russian and worked to get that insanely powerful limb back somewhere that he could better control it.

"Everyone is safe, Buck!" Steve wasn't giving up any more than the Captain was, not until Bucky's struggle ended up getting him knocked out cold, laying on his uninjured shoulder. The yelled words stopped then, but Steve couldn't break off to make sure the other Steve was still breathing.

He tried forcing Bucky to his knees instead just before Sam busted his way in to help. And, like Bruce, he was taken aback by the man curled up with his back to them.

"Oh hell-- What is going on in here?"

"Maybe we talk about that later, Sam, okay?"

Steve grunted as he tried to keep Bucky from hurting either of them or crashing through the window without actually hurting him in return. It broke his damn heart to see Bucky this way, so lost and frightened, and he couldn't help be reminded of what Steve had said to him. He was like the men with combat fatigue, only so much worse.

"...Bucky, please! Buck!"

Bucky snarled, wordless and frightened, until Sam managed to take him out with a well placed punch to the temple. It wasn't ideal, but it had to be done, or he was going to tear them both apart. He collapsed sideways, ending up next to the smaller Steve.

"So hey." Tony was still in his armor as he strode through the doors to find a bunch of people on the ground. Sam was kneeling over some blond kid, Steve's bestie was on his back covered in what obviously was not all his blood, and Steve himself was sitting at the opposite wall, which was cracked, watching everything. "Any time someone wants to jump on board the explaining what the hell happened ship, I'm ready to catch you. Is that a HYDRA operative? Please tell me you caught us a HYDRA operative."

Sam and Steve both glanced upwards before going back to their little used to be soldiers club. "He's still breathing, he'll be all right," Sam said, standing. "But how is he here? He should be you right about now."

Tony flipped up his face mask and frowned. "I'm the only one here allowed to be confusing," he said, stepping over Barnes to check on the Captain, and Bruce through the window too. "All right, Cap?"

"We're going to need medical here. And a safer room for Bucky. I don't want him restrained."

Bruce finally entered the room himself too, pushing a gurney towards the smaller Steve, better to get him checked over first since he seemed like he might be naturally weak and sickly (of course he was, Bruce had read all the files, had obsessed over Steve before his disaster with the attempted serum).

"This is Steve, Tony," he said in an undertone as he passed. "Steve and Steve, past and future, I'm not sure how or why."

He paused again in front of Steve, the awake and muscled one, looking sympathetic. "I don't want to restrain him, but a safer room implies locks, are you sure that's going to go well?"

Steve and Steve. Tony was enthralled and confused and gobsmacked to the point of silence for the moment, stepping out of the front of his armor to help Bruce lift the small bodied man onto the gurney. He was bloody, his arm was in a medival looking cast, and every single part of him was shrunken. He too had been obsessed with Steve's story when he was growing up but there hasn't been too many surviving photographs of the man like this. He had to be in his twenties, twenty three, if memory served right, but he looked seventeen or eighteen. And that was just fascinating.

"We can lockdown the building right? Give him the entire run of the place? And I need eyes. If he's himself when he wakes up, Steve will need to be there to keep him calm." The Captain gave orders and asked question without going into too much detail. They all stopped to listen, though, and to answer if they could.

"Sure. We can take the building off the grid. Should give him space without risking anyone," Sam said, ignoring the way Tony leaned over the smaller Steve like he was an insect on the end of a pin. He opened his mouth to mention safety protocols when the younger blond groaned, moved, and then settled back down.

"Oh my god, I want one," Tony said.

Steve wasn't pleased. "Knock it off, Tony. Let's get everyone cleared out-- thanks, Sam," he mentioned as he was pulled to his feet. "Leave Buck where he is. The sooner we get everyone patched up and woken up, the better."

"Seriously though," Tony pouted, "why didn't you tell us you use to be so cute? Seriously though, can we give him your title?"

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