fossilised | For Steve

Bucky had come a long way in the past few weeks, but right now his expression had gone right back to the shuttered blankness that protected him from anyone seeing how much something hurt or frightened him. It wasn't a healthy coping mechanism to push it all down and out of sight, but it was what he had. He couldn't let these things out or they'd destroy him completely.

"They're going to want to arrest me."

It's not a question, more a low statement. If Steve wants to do this by the book, with the legal system, then there was no way that they would let Bucky roam free until any trial. He was technically a terrorist, they could detain him and question him with full legality for quite some time, and the very idea of being trapped and not in control of his own life again was utterly terrifying.

"And there isn't a case, they'll find me guilty. There's enough evidence, Steve, files and CCTV with my face on them, they'll think anything we say are lies."

Not to mention that he shared Grant's suspicion that HYDRA still infiltrated the government, and that putting himself in their hands was just asking to be returned to the Soldier.

Doing what was right legally was not always what was right morally. Steve was not a good boy in the general sense of the word. He cheated and he lied when he had to, or when it made sense to do so to help the most people. How would giving Bucky over help anyone but their enemies, however? Choosing Bucky was not about the greater good here, because Bucky technically was the greater good. He wasn't hurting anyone. He wasn't dangerous-- other people might not expect that or accept it as truth but Steve served the little guy.

"No one is handing you over to get arrested," he said, voice flat, before he turned to Grant and Bucky after switching off the television. "Sam can be here in half an hour. But we have to get to an extraction point."

Grant didn't really like the sound of that. "You know I'll slow you down," he said immediately. He'd been with Steve during two full weeks of trying to find Bucky. It had been slow and almost disasterous. "You two go. I can hold the people downstairs off and I can work with Mister Stark to try to clear Buck's name. We have evidence. We just have to make people see it for what it is."

"No."

Bucky's voice was firm on that, cutting right through Steve's plans of extraction and Grant trying to be a self-sacrificing idiot again. Even though he wanted to run, and he might still do that, he wasn't going to let these two throw away their lives for him. Not now, not ever.

"Neither of you can run, you know how that would make you look? Guilty. Culpable. I'm not being responsible for that. If I go, then I'll go alone, I know how to hide."

Both of them knew that was true, he had hidden from everyone for a long time, he could do it again.

"I'm not going yet. If they come for me, I'll go. Otherwise, I'm going to fight this."

"You're not leaving us," both of the Rogers said, almost angrily, with Grant making the more passionate plea. "Never again. You've broken that promise too many times. If you leave, it's with Steve. I'm not being a martyr here, all right? I'm trying to buy you time. No one knows me. I'm not in any trouble. Once you're safe I can come to you a whole lot easier than if we all get caught running."

Steve put his hand on Grant's shoulder. He understood where that was coming from but he also didn't believe Grant needed to stay behind. "We can get you through anything, if there's two of us looking out for you, you won't slow us down."

Grant snorted. "What are you going to do? Toss me over buildings? Carry me on your backs? You can't fight with me there. Don't be completely stupid."

"We aren't leaving you. No one is leaving anyone," Steve insisted. "Buck. You asked us to go steady, didn't you? Just because things are tough doesn't mean you get to leave us."

Bucky glared daggers at both the Rogers idiots. Why were they always so stubborn and unable to accept that he could handle things on his own a hell of a lot better? He wasn't about to leave them for good, didn't they get that? Just until the heat was off, just until it was safe.

"Then I guess none of us are leaving."

He wasn't going to pull Grant from his college courses, not when he could see how much they meant to him and how much he enjoyed them, nor was he about to turn America against Steve.

With a scowl, he hopped down from the bed and slipped out in the front room, grabbing Grant's cup of coffee on the way past.

"Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Like defend me in public, you've gotta be smart about this."

Grant wasn't sure what to do. It wasn't like he could really go to school. Or work. They would be all over him after all. Not that it worried him. They could arrest him and those were just normal people out there. Not cops. Not the government. He lightly rubbed down the back of his hair and then strode forward, clasping his hands in front of him, and left the room.

That left Steve to glance at Bucky before he followed Grant, calling his name. "What's going through your head--"

"School. Getting through the protestors downstairs," Grant murmured. "Trying to decide if I should quit at the coffee shop because they don't need this sort of thing." He was shaking a little as he pulled his shirt over his head, not because he was scared but because he was angry and had his hands tied. "Get Mr. Stark over here. If you put the Avengers behind Buck, you'll get better support."

Maybe. He wasn't a lawyer or a study on human sociology.

But something told him that they needed to play it normal and they needed to make Bucky likable.

"They know his name. They're saying it on the news. He's our childhood best friend. No way would Captain America befriend a criminal."

Steve was a little less sure of the American public being so ready to accept that Bucky was good just because Cap stood behind him, he had learned over the years that the only thing the public loved more than a hero was a reason to tear that hero down and watch everything burn. But he didn't want to burden Grant with that, so he just nodded.

"Keep your phone on you at school, you need extraction then you just call and someone will come for you."

He wasn't about to ask Grant if he was sure about wanting to go, because of course he was. Steve wouldn't back down from this sort of fight either. Start running, and when do you stop?

Bucky was ahead of Steve and Grant, anyway, scooping up his phone to dial Tony almost as soon as he was on his own. He needed to know what the hell was going on and if they were coming to arrest him, Tony would know.

"I have JARVIS doing some technical scrubbing," Tony was saying, sounding relaxed on the other end of the line. He had given an interview just half an hour earlier but he tended not to sweat the things legal took care of. "I can't remove everything, hackers will think that's pretty suspicious, but I've gotten what I can offline. I think you three should come back to Manhattan. I know you like that little place in Brooklyn but it's safer for you all here."

Grant was banging things around, mostly trying not to fall over as he hopped around to get his legs into his trousers. He still didn't wear jeans to school even if everyone else did. He took class seriously. And sure, some of those classes were messy and he could ruin his clothes, but he was careful. Steve was there to keep from from falling over at least.

Tony was still talking anyway, regardless of any grunting Bucky was sure to do at him. "You're on the radar with the Feds but they don't have any warrants out for you. It's all media right now. That means it's an image issue. We might want to talk about how we want to frame your side of things. But later. Pack up your boyfriends and get ready to head to the car I'm going to send. No. Violence. No scowling. Try not to look scary okay? And put Rogers on. Cap. I want him to kiss babies and sign autographs. Because no one is doing anything wrong."

"We can't come, Grant has class in about an hour and he can't get there from your Tower too easily. If nobody is coming to arrest me, then we don't have a reason to hole up behind your defences."

No violence was something he could probably do, providing nobody set him off first, but no scowling was a difficult one. He smiled a lot more now, mostly around the Rogers two and Tony, but he still had a naturally intimidating expression when he was out and about in public.

"He's not going to be kissing babies, Tony, he hasn't done that since the forties."

He did, however, throw the phone at Steve's head so that he could catch it out of the air and put it to his ear.

"Tony, hey-- Thanks for getting your team on this, where are we at?"

"We're at your SO being a pain in my ass," Tony said, the sounds around him indicating that he had likely stood up. "Bucky mentioned you guys were going to send Grant to school, which is probably fine but I'd rather have one of my cars take and bring him back." Thst wouldn't be popular with Grant. He wanted to be normal. No special treatment. He didn't even let Bucky take him to school when he could take the subway just fine. "But let me guess? Famous Rogers stubbornness? Fine. Listen I'm coming over. I'm going to bring video equipment and set it up so you guys can keep in touch with my legal team. They think it's a good idea for everyone to come at this positively without giving information away. No talking to the public, got it? Right now we don't have any police force on the case. It's not even a case. But if the protests get too big, they're going to be out at the apartment. For the protestors. Tell Barnes that before he panics. I'll know if they get a warrant but it's not likely. Barnes isn't wanted in connection to anything. Fury isn't dead. You're not dead. He has something in Russia and something in Bulgaria that are within the statute of limitations but as long as no one is trying to extredite him, I think we're okay."

Grant took the coffee back from Bucky and shoved his sketchbook into his backpack. He wasn't bringing the portfolio case today. It would be too much in his hands. Just in case.

His hair wasn't combed but he'd get to that shortly. Of all of them, he was the only one acting somewhat normal.

"You have Sam coming?"

"He's on standby," Steve admitted.

"Bad idea. Sends the wrong impressions. Have him come down as a friend. I'll be there in an hour, Cap."

Maybe he was acting somewhat normal because he just didn't know what the media could accomplish these days. Back in the forties it had been much less of a powerhouse, far less credible than the police force or actual legal system. But these days social media, protests, and general public outrage could topple governments if they worked hard enough at it. If this took off over the social media sites, it could easily become ugly very quickly.

Steve sighed, but he could see the wisdom in Tony's words (for once) and he knew that Tony cared as much about keeping Bucky safe and free as the rest of them.

"Alright, I'll call Sam off of an official fly-by, get him to drop in later. I'll leave the door unlatched, just come on up."

Bucky came up behind Grant and slipped his arms around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder where he dwarfed the smaller and younger man. "Let me take you to school?" For his peace of mind. "On the bike, maybe it'll even help if I'm seen out in public doing a normal thing."

There was never a time when Bucky's arms around him did not make Grant feel better about himself. He closed his eyes and leaned back into the embrace while Steve dealt with Tony and then called Sam. This was about rallying together the wagons and not a out being defensive. And maybe Bucky had a point about waiting to take him but it scared Grant to put the man out there. He'd have to come home alone. He'd have to go through the crowd alone. What if someone said something horrible--?

He didn't know that Bucky had watched his own torture stoically beside Stsrk. He knew his boyfriend was strong but not how strong he could be. He twisted around to lay his head on Bucky's chest. "I can do this. I need you to be safe, Buck. Losing you would be the worst thing to ever happen to me."

Not that a lot of bad things had happened to him. He was poor and sick a lot but otherwise he didn't have a bad life at all.

"I won't tell you no but... I'm just afraid for us." If he couldn't admit that to Bucky, who could be tell? "A month was too long. If you're right-- what if they take you from me for years?"

"I won't let that happen."

Grant was an idiot if he thought that Bucky would ever let himself be caged again. He had seen what his life could be like as a person now, to go back to being trapped in a box and unable to control his own destiny would be the death of him. He bent further to press a kiss into Grant's hair.

"C'mon, I'm going to take you to school, you don't have to worry about me getting back okay. I can handle whatever a few protesters might say to me."

Truthfully, he might even agree with some of it. He still had a tendency to blame himself for what had happened, even if he knew logically that he had no choice in what he did.

"Got all your stuff?"

"Yeah... Just..." Grant moved back into Bucky's bedroom to give Steve a hug. Maybe it was an odd ritual since they were sort of the same person and definitely going steady with the same boyfriend, but both of the Rogers liked their hugs and it kept them connected to one another. "Make sure he comes back all right," he told Steve before the other blond wished him a good day and followed him back to the living room to give Bucky a kiss goodbye.

"See you in an hour? I'll have eggs waiting."

The door to the outside wasn't locked behind them, since Steve feared nothing and Tony was due soon, but Grant felt as if his escape had been completely cut off as the door shut at his back. Bucky was moving forward, towards the surging crowd, and Grant couldn't hear himself think over the shouting. People started to throw things passed their signs, all of which said horrible things like MURDER! and NOT IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD! and JUSTICE! Grant had to duck a glass bottle, wnd the sound of sirens made him cringe.

"Please, this is my home! You're trespassing! Just leave us alone," he called before he felt his backpack grabbed by one unruly twenty something with green frosted tips.

Although some of the braver protesters threw things at Bucky from behind the safety of their signs, none of them actually reached out to try and grab or push him. Even if he was the one they were here to protest about, he was huge and even in jeans and a hoodie he gave off a distinct impression of being able to destroy literally anyone there with minimum effort. He kept his expression blank as they shouted insults at him, but he couldn't stand by while Grant was grabbed.

"Let go."

He issued the order with a quiet firmness, but his voice still cut through the noise and everyone went silent, the tension creeping up. The girl who had grabbed Grant didn't let go, however, she just glared into his face and addressed him directly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? You're helping protect someone who's murdered hundreds of people! He's a Nazi! You're disgusting!"

Bucky's fingers flexed but he didn't step in yet. "Last warning, let him go."

"He's not a Nazi!" Grant said. That word was the enemy. He'd grown hated them and everything they stood for. "He fell from a train, he was captured and tortured and forced to be a weapon. He escaped. How can you protest a POW? Are you people insane? This is completely unamerican!" Grant said pulling out of his backpack to turn and face her. "You have no idea what hardship is. You have no ide what living during wartime was like. You're selfish and you're uninformed and this man you're spouting hatred for? He's a good man. If any of you touch me again I will be pressing charges!"

He grabbed his backpack away from the stunned girl and marched his way down the stairs and towards the police car pulling up. "Officer, my name is Grant Rogers. We are being harassed. That woman up there laid hands on me and we have things being thrown at us."

No one got to be a bully. No one.

Bucky's expression didn't alter much, but Grant might be able to see the pride in his eyes as he followed the smaller man down the steps. This is why he had chosen to follow Steve, not Captain America, because he had always been a hero in his heart. Scrawny or muscled, Steve or Grant, they didn't make them like this any more. Or ever. He was lucky as hell to have them.

The police officers looked a bit nervous to be around Bucky now that he had been officially outed as a possibly dangerous super soldier, but to their credit they maintained professionalism.

"Alright, sir, we're here to make sure the protests don't get physical again. But I would advise you, for your own safety, to stay off the streets for a while."

Bucky put his hand on Grant's shoulder, voice soft. "Get on the bike, you're going to be late for class and they're not worth it."

"Thank you, officer," was the last thing that Grant said as the police climbed out of their cars to make a perimeter around the apartments. They were allowed lawfully on the sidewalk as that was public property but could not climb the stairs or throw anything. Two people would be arrested later for disorderly conduct but that would be well after Bucky dropped Grant off.

There were stares from people at the school as they pulled up and it occurred to Grant that by tomorrow, the fact that he was a student here would go as viral as where Bucky was being kept. It scared him, fully, to think that they had no recourse for this, that Bucky would feel guilty for it too, and so Grant made sure he smiled widely at his boyfriend as he climbed off of the bike.

"I'm going to be all right. Don't worry about me. I love you all right?"

"I love you too."

Bucky managed a small smile, though his expression was mostly thoughtful. He remained astride his motorbike after Grant had gone inside the building, staring at the walls of concrete and glass. He wasn't an idiot, far from it, and he knew that the best way to deal with being a media sensation wasn't to hide. It was to own it, to make it yours, and to control it.

He had to do something sympathetic, heroic, or just plain make people see him as a person. He had a sort of idea where to start, which is why he sent out a text to both Tony and Steve that just said: "Don't be mad, won't be there for a few hours. Am okay." And then he slipped into the college building.

Grant's class started late.

Most of the other students were talking about the Winter Soldier news, especially casting glances at Grant, isolating him from within a crowd. One or two approached to ask if he was really a descendant of the Steve Rogers, but everyone else kept their gossip over his head. When the professor did arrive, she looked flustered.

"Class, today we are having our "Life in War" session. Last year's class drew Colonel Kevin Sanders, a double amputee vet of Afghanistan. This year, you're going to be drawing--" She swallowed, nervous, but carried on bravely. "Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th."

One class. Not a whole media outlet, but one class was a start. If he could make these college kids look at him as a vet rather than as a killer, they'd tweet about it and make posts about it and the seed would be sown. It might also give Grant sympathetic company in his classmates.

Steve was used to ridicule. Class here had been amazing. The people that attended the Brooklyn Institute for Fine Arts were amazing and diverse. No one looked like anyone else. Fat, thin, gay or trans, pink hair, covered in tattoos, everyone was accepted and welcomed. It was why he had really, really loved it. So even though his current gathering of fifteen fellow classmates had ended up talking about him today instead of with him, Steve understood.

People were scared and gossiping and those that had braved their way over were smiled at sadly. "I do look like him, don't I? My mother always told me that," Grant had said before they were all shoed back to their seats.

If the whole class was surprised by their sudden guest, none looked so positively flabbergasted as poor Grant. Especially when the hulking form of his friend filled the doorway behind their teacher, pushing hair behind his ears. "Is it... Safe?" someone asked and Grant found himself climbing to his feet before the teacher spoke agsin and he was motioned to sit down.

"Sargeant Barnes deserves our respect as a veteran of our military. Please take your easels and prepare. You may select your mediums. I would prefer charcoals, graphite or pastels but there's temper paints and water colors available. Please no oils. We don't have time to allow the work to properly set. Sargeant? Are you... When you're comfortable, please take a seat in the center-- find a pose you don't mind holding for extended periods of time."

Bucky was handsome. His body was impeccable. And that arm? Well that arm was going to be making waves.

There were already photos being snapped as Grant took one of the nearby stations. Charcoals out, he wet his lips and watched Bucky undress.

The whole point of these sessions were for the students to see the veterans and their wounds in vivid detail, and know that war wasn't always far away on other shores to be heard about on the news. It also usually helped the veterans who came, they liked seeing themselves as art, it made the ugly more beautiful.

Bucky didn't really like being naked - not because he had any shame left in him at all, he didn't, but because it was a tactical disadvantage to escaping - but he didn't hesitate in pulling his clothes off. Muscle and scar tissue were revealed all at once in the body that HYDRA had given him. The arm glinted in the light and most of the class had gone into a hushed silence.

"Usually-- usually we encourage questions during the session about the tour of duty, but this time it might be--"

"No." Bucky interrupted her. "It's fine, they can ask me whatever they want. I don't have anything to hide." His eyes flicked up to Grant as he said that, as if in explanation of what he was trying to achieve here, battling it all head on and refusing to run.

There was no more liberal set of people in the world than the ones sitting in the life drawing class in Brooklyn. They were all young, Grant's age and under, with tattoos and piercings everywhere. None of them were too afraid to speak but it took one brave soul, the girl beside Grant, to speak up first. "How'd you lose your arm? I mean, you did lose it, right? It's not under the metal?"

More questions followed. All were superficial at first, requesting information about the train or if the arm hurt him. But not every student focused on the puckered skin at his shoulder. Some sketched his back and those students had the more difficult questions since they couldn't see Bucky's face.

"What do you remember?"

"I only read a little bit about the leaks last year from the government but is it true that you were brainwashed? Like an experiment?"

"What do you remember?"

"Is it hard to sleep?"

Grant, who had focused on the way Bucky held his head and the way his lips set and his gaze level, cleared his throat when there was finally silence. "What was it like when you remembered who you are?"

Getting any information out of Bucky was usually as hard as pulling teeth, he preferred to keep it all under wraps and pretend everything was okay until it really wasn't. He didn't talk about the things that had happened to him, not even to Steve and Grant, but he answered every question asked of him. Sometimes it was obvious that he had to force himself to, sometimes the answers were only a word or two, but he did answer them all.

Yes he was an experiment, yes it's hard to sleep, he remembers every victim and not a whole lot about his life before. Grant's question makes him raise his head, eyes dark and expression blank, but he answers all the same.

"It was horrible," he said, candid and honest. "The Soldier didn't feel, or want, or need because he wasn't, I wasn't, human. But then I was, and I had to feel all at once everything that I had done. Some of the memories are good, I can smell what my Ma's apple pie was like when it was ready baked, but most of it is the people I've killed and the blood on my hands. And what they did to me to make me do it. It was horrible, it's still horrible, but I wouldn't forget again for anything. 'Cos even if it hurts, I didn't just remember fear and pain, I also remembered love and laughter."

Bucky's answer made Grant smile. It was hard to hear this. He remembered Bucky tell him so much of it way back when he first came for him but these answers were raw and powerful and the art that came out of it, the emotion coupled with the visual, would be exquisite. A few of the students were battling tears, but most stayed away from the grit of the torture itself. The questions were respectful and not for shock value.

After an hour, the teacher called for a break and brought Bucky a black robe to cover up with. She offered him water and the students approached slowly to shake hands or to get photos or to ask Bucky to come over to see the start of their work. #IMWITHBUCKY was already trending on Twitter too.

"I just want you to know," the teacher said as she called everyone back to their stations, "that I think you're brave. And-- Thank you. For coming. This has been an amazing opportunity."

Bucky didn't feel brave, he felt like he was on the hair trigger of running away or punching someone in the face for asking the wrong question, but he brought a tight smile to his lips anyway and tugged the robe closer around himself. The students got a slightly more genuine smile and he shook hands with anyone who wanted to, even the one who cheekily asked to shake left handed to feel the metal hand.

It took him a while to make his way round to Grant, voice low and pitched just for his ears when he finally made it there to look at whatever he had started to draw.

"And Tony says I have no head for social tactics..."

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