fossilised | For Steve

"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?"

A lockdown of the building sounded like a good idea and they quickly put it into place. Steve assured Bruce that it would be for the best if the smaller Steve was left in the building too, that Bucky would be more likely to freak out further if he woke up without the other Steve there. He ignored the wordless questions about why and how that made him feel, he pushed it down himself.

This was for Bucky.

He chivvied Tony out of the compound from where he had been ordering JARVIS to take a few pictures of smaller Steve (wow, that was creepy), and got it all locked up from the outside. There were cameras, of course, they'd be able to see and hear. If Bucky really and genuinely asked to leave then he'd open it up even if the man wasn't safe, he had promised no jail.

So when Bucky woke up it was in the same position on the floor, with Steve on a gurney nearby. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, frightened and tense, padding over to check Steve's pulse as his first point of call.

"Wake up."

It was half order, half plea.

Sitting around the screens in another building on the compound, the images from the room blown up large st two different angles, they watched as Steve shifted just a little and said something softly. "J, enhance audio."

"Yeah, yeah, just s few minutes," the younger Steve complained, reaching up with his unbound arm to set a hand to Bucky's chest. The blood had dried by then and most rubbed off on Bucky's clothes from the battles before, but he left just a vague smear of an outline at Bucky's collar of two fingers before he reached up again to hold on to the fabric this time. "Buck, you're back right?"

Steve sat up with difficulty, carefully moving his head from side to side as if he had either been afraid of something broken or that he was just feeling dizzy.

"And are we in the future now?"

Bucky would find his friend smiling, one eye closed from the ringing in his head, but nonetheless all right.

And Tony just found the whole thing fascinating.

"One little change and he doesn't become you. Butterfly effect in action right here."

The older Steve just ignored Tony and kept his attention on the screen, his expression carefully controlled but pain in his eyes. He just wanted to be down there helping too, he wanted to be the one touching Bucky and comforting him. Why was Bucky so much calmer with the past version of himself? Did he blame Steve for not saving him?

Heedless that they were being watched, though Bucky assumed that they were because facilities like this were always observed, Bucky reached out to touch Steve very lightly on the chest as though to figure out if he was still breathing.

"I don't know."

At least he was talking in English now, no longer mindless with panic. But he felt fuzzy, indistinct, as though he had lost a part of himself to the Soldier in the last day or so and talking at all felt like climbing up a steep hill for the effort it took. He just wanted to hide, to run, to figure out what the hell was going on.

"We have to get out of here, Steve, it's a facility. They're gonna test on us."

From the gurney, Steve glanced around. It was the same room that he had been wound up back together in and he touched s hand over where Bucky was touching just to make sure that he was real. Everything seemed to be in place and he sighed in relief. "It's okay, Buck. Steve was here a little bit ago. He was trying to get you to calm down." And so was he but Steve was pretty sure he was a failure there. "It was actually pretty amazing to watch. I think you're both about evenly matched. He had your fist and one point and-- oh. Sorry."

He probably shouldn't be gaga over his other self, even if that was no longer his destiny. And he was fine by that, but it was still pretty stellar to see what someone who use to be just like him was capable of doing. Modern medicine was pretty out there and amazing.

Now if only they had a way to cure his asthma right?

Steve ducked his head to show Bucky that he was calm and he was smiling. "I think this is that place he said he'd take you. Is everything in the future so bright?" Because wow. The lights in here were really starting to hurt his eyes, which seemed even bluer now that the pupils were so small. "Anyway, how are you feeling? I think you sicked up everything from breakfast on the carpet and... And I'm sorry. About those people at the door. I should have known better."

Steve was doing a lot more talking than usual, but his voice was soft and the pacing was easy. He was just excited and worried and trying to show Bucky it was all right.

It was good, the right sort of thing to do, because if Steve wasn't scared then Bucky had an anchor to try and force himself to behave. He hated what he had done over the last couple of days, he hated that he hadn't just been able to help out where he should have done. Steve was hurt because of him, he was supposed to protect not make things a heck of a lot worse.

"Don't."

He stepped back, removing his hand from Steve's chest, but stayed close in case he needed support now that he was sat up on the gurney. He had knocked him out, hadn't he? Maybe he had a head injury, he had been out for some time.

"Don't apologise to me, not after what I've done. Your head, does it hurt?"

It was easier to focus on Steve, like giving himself a mission. If he had a mission then he was able to cope with anything, that was what had drilled into him.

Some of this really felt like his fault but he would do as Bucky requested and keep the apologies at bay. He touched the back of his head and pulled away with a little blood on his fingers from where his skull made contact with the wall. "It hurts a little but I'm all right. It's just a little blood." Of course, with Bucky covered in a lot more than that, and having fresh memories of watching that blood arc across the doorway, Steve immediately rubbed his fingers on the gurney's mattress to clean himself off. His stomach seemed to be doing all right too. No need to throw up. Good. He could handle this. "What about you? Anything hurt?"

He made an experimental push to get off of the gurney and after a few scoots to the edge, managed it without too much difficulty. He stood just above Bucky's shoulder, clothing a little too oversized especially around his fine, swanlike neck and wrist.

His arm hurt a lot more than his head but he hadn't really been resting it since the last night he and Bucky had shared a bed. And since Bucky had made him promise to say so, he didn't hold back the ache. "I didn't think to bring any of that medication you brought either. My arm could use some numbing."

Bucky was keeping his distance from him and so Steve let him stay away if he wanted that. He didn't crowd the man unless he needed it.

"Think there's a bathroom here? Gotta be, right?"

Really, Bucky should tell Steve just how important he was in these moments. He acted as an anchor in the storm, something that had pulled Bucky from his fear and was keeping him grounded even in a place like this. Steve was right, it wasn't really a facility, he could see comfortable lounges through the fractured glass of this room. This was just a room meant for containment.

He wanted to get out.

"Yeah, come on, we'll find it together."

He had a momentary fear that the door wouldn't open when they reached it, but it did and they found themselves in the main compound area. Lavish and probably futuristic looking to Steve with the sleek screens and modern decor. Bucky was just comforted by the carpet under his feet... facilities didn't usually have carpet.

"Sorry," he said, after a few moments. "That woman, she was trying to-- I panicked, I was still panicking when we got here. I won't let it happen again."

There were over twenty buildings at the Avengers Compound, most of which had been build slowly for an ad need basis when space ran out on land that housed Howard Stark's technology warehouses. The main building was a beautiful single story ran h style home with ten bedrooms, thirteen bathrooms, a communal kitchen and a recreational area. There was also a dedicated gym with an Olympic sized swimming pool, several lab spaces, training buildings, hangers and more warehouses than Howard thought he would need, all within the hundred acres of protected, secure space that Tony now owned and let the Avengers use at their leisure.

This particular building was a concept piece build especially for Bruce Banner. Everything was reinforced. There were physics labratlry slaces and living quarters and a conference room too. Plus that pool that Tony bad quipped about. Bucky and Steve would happen upon that first since it was just beyond the hall leading from the lab to the lounge. Steve was flabbergasted.

"They don't make pools like this-- wow. I wish I had my trunks!"

Steve might be hurt but he was also extremely easy going when it came to these things, eager to experience and believe in the remarkable nature around him. Bucky might find comfort in that too.

"I don't think I d ever swam in a pool before, just the ocean-- so neat!"

Edited 2017-02-15 21:52 (UTC)

Bucky stayed by Steve's side as they explored this particular building, like a hulking bodyguard or shadow. The only room he refused to enter was the laboratory, halting at the doorway and shaking his head silently in the hope that Steve would understand and not go inside either. Luckily, Steve had always been empathetic and understanding, and so the laboratory was not disturbed.

The pool, though, that was something different. It was soothing, a clear sign that this wasn't meant to be a prison of any kind, and it brought the first modicum of peace to his expression that there had been since the pair of Soldiers had knocked at their door in the past.

"You can't swim with a cast, you'll just waterlog it and sink." It wasn't meant to be a reprimand, it was almost light enough to be a tease. Almost. "If we're still here when you get it off, we can swim. Don't need trunks, it's just me."

He didn't mean that in any particularly lascivious way, it was just a simple fact. Steve had no need to be embarrassed in front of him, he had seen him naked many times in their youth helping him bathe when he was too sick to do it himself.

"...where do you think everyone else is? Steve-- the other Steve, he said more people lived here. But it's just us."

"Maybe they're just giving us our space." Because he was not going to touch the swimming naked with Bucky Barnes topic. It had changed. They had missed. Steve's romantic intention was known. And yeah. It was just really different now. He didn't even mention the teasing, and it was teasing no matter the tone. It made his eyes light up to hear it and his calmness looped back through back and into himself. They were a good pair, playing off of the other. But it had always been that way, right? "You were really upset. I know you are trying to protect me, right? Does this place look a lot like the one you were... Uh. Trained in?"

Steve was very keen on making sure that he understood everything Bucky said or did and why. He wanted to know what might trigger him. He wanted to be able to save him from anything that came up too.

They passed out of the pool area to a bathroom. Finally. It was a little bit like an upscale lockedoom. Without the lockers. Maybe this was just a place to change and shower. That worked though.

"Let me see your hands, pal. I'll help you." With one hand. It should be the other way around but Bucky needed a little affection right now. Steve was glad to give it.

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