fossilised | For Steve

Grant might notice that not all of his classmates were speaking against Bucky. Some were talking about how soft spoken and brace he had been, and how PTSD was a horrible thing, and how murdering Nazis shouldn't be a crime. They were literal Nazis! The one who spoke Russian swore blind that Finney had a weapon, and that it had been self defence. Some others were damning Bucky as a killer and claiming Finney had been the nicest professor on campus.

It turned out there would be no need to ring Tony at the station, there was already someone waiting. Sam Wilson gave Grant a tight sort of smile.

"Hey there, pint sized, not having a great day, huh? You're up for obstruction, but Tony already posted your bail so we're out of here. Come on, let's go get a coffee, you and I need to talk."

Grant didn't want to leave the station. He didn't want to be paraded through a crowd or captured on camera any more. He felt guilty for all of it. Guilty because of his own selfish desire for attending school. He could have just returned to the compound. No one would have ever found Bucky there. No protests. No chance spotting on the street, no murder of a man in his classroom.

His eyes were dry as he followed Sam, not exactly aloof but still sort of out of it. He was currently existing in his own head. He was currently trying to pick out points of weakness where everything good had gone sour and where he could have fixed it before it happened.

Sam led him out back, down the way they took criminals when transporting them to prison, and Grant was at least relieved that no lights or microphones were thrust in his face. He didn't care to speak right now. He didn't even really want to talk to Sam.

Starbucks. It smelled the same in every Starbucks in New York and thst was by design. It was busy and bustling and no one ever looked at anyone else. Not really. The best place to be annonymous in a city crawling with people was right here in the busiest place of all. The best place to be alone was I. A constantly shifting crowd.

No one recognized them. Grant waited for Sam upstsirs on the little balcony where there were still some seats in the back away from Windows where tourists sat to people watch and sip expensive water and milk beverages. He'd asked for... Actually, Grant didn't remember asking for anything. He didn't know if he could drink or eat anything right now.

Maybe Grant wasn't a veteran with PTSD, but he still had the blank look of someone in shock and pain, and Sam was well acquainted with that and how to deal with it. He brought two cups of strong coffee and some pastries to the table, and set them down between the two of them. Steve-- Grant, it was hard to remember sometimes, needed a bit of sugar to boost him through this.

"Tony is already building a solid defence for Bucky. We have CCTV file footage of that man, whatever his name was, involved in the Soldier's "care" about a year ago, and two staff members have verified that he cancelled his class and deliberately headed to your lecture hall once somebody told him who the guest model was. So we have an abuser intending to provoke the abused, that should give him some defence. He also didn't resist arrest so that's a point in his favour."

Sam was an easy blend of pragmatic and sympathetic, a skill well honed over his years at the VA.

"Tony sounded worried on the phone, pretty sure he's going to be raising hell to get Barnes free and Steve the same. You can't blame yourself for what happened, pint sized, you hear me? You doing okay?"

Grant didn't like the nickname but he didn't say a word about it. Not this time and not the last time. He used one of the napkins Sam brought up for his fingers, rubbing the material off of each digit that he could before he wrapped those fingers around the cardboard sleeve meant to prevent burns from the paper cup. The heat was intense. He appreciated that.

Lifting his eyelids, lashes exactly the same as Steve's, Grant found himself turning his gaze almost defiantly up towards Sam, though the other man was not the problem.

"I'm all right." He tried to make it seem like he could do this sort of thing all day, that he was uncrackable and resilient. Stronger, perhaps, than any man, serum or not, could ever be.

He felt like he needed this. It was a good wake up call, a decent shock to the system to remind him that he needed to man up here and take reaponsibility. He needed to understand that things couldn't be simple. Nine days of coming home every night to Steve and Bucky had been a bliss that unrealistically couldn't sustain itself without collapsing under its own weight.

"We need to focus on Bucky here, Sam. I'm glad there's going to be a defense though. It doesn't-- But it won't matter. The world is never going to see him as anything but an animal like this. We need to figure out how to help him. He needs... He really needs someone to talk to."

"You'd be surprised what the world can forgive, given enough incentive to see things in other ways."

Sam wasn't always necessarily talking about good things, but history was littered with the way that the public consciousness had been changed in order to reflect what those in charge wanted them to see. Maybe it would be harder, possibly impossible, but there was a chance. It was just unfortunate that even taking into account that none of this was his fault, it didn't change that Barnes was a very dangerous man.

A lot of people would pity a rabid dog that bit someone, but very few would argue against putting it down for its own safety and that of everyone around it. Sam was a little worried this would be the same thing.

"I ain't arguing with you, your man needs to talk, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen. He doesn't seem like the sort of man who's comfortable with opening up, and I don't think there's a therapist in the world qualified to deal with what he's been through."

He took a sip of his own coffee and leaned back in his chair.

"This was bound to happen sooner or later, it's probably better that it's sooner. And you're not alright, but that's okay too, nobody would be alright in your situation."

Sam was a good guy. There was a reason that Steve became such good friends with him, but Grant wasn't exactly in the proper frame of mind to sit here and be consoled. When he needed something off of his chest, he had Bucky. If he was real bad off, not even Bucky would get in to him. Grant dealt with his agony the way all men of his time did. Alone. That was what he needed more than anything else right now. But Sam was just trying to be kind.

So Grant tried to prove just how fine he was, taking one of the scones to pick out the overly sugared blueberries from the thick and super sweet dough. He ended up dunking little pieces in his coffee too, mostly letting the pastry disintegrate after the plastic lid had been placed side up. He watched the little brown droplets of moisture on the lid collect in the curved indents where the lip of the cup should go and finally sat back.

"Why did they tell you to take me away?" Tony. Steve. "I really should be there, Sam. Can you take me back?"

Sam would like to go back and find the idiots who dictated that all men back then be stoic about their pain, it was their fault that so many good men drove themselves into the ground with shell shock or other issues. Grant was obviously suffering, so was Steve, and both idiots were too goddamn stubborn to admit it.

He considered denying that he had been asked to get Grant out of the way, but he discounted it almost at once and shrugged.

"Tony asked me to keep you away, Bruce is on Steve duty, he wants you both away from the police station. Not sure why."

Maybe because Tony had more of a chance, impossible as it seemed, of getting Bucky free without resorting to shield throwing and emotional outbursts. Money and power could open a whole lot of doors.

"But I'll tell you what, why don't we ask JARVIS what's going on? Hey, J?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Stark has already left the police station with Sergeant Barnes, a rather large bail has been posted and an agreement that Sergeant Barnes will not leave Stark Tower. Not entered into by Sergeant Barnes, who has not spoken since being arrested." House arrest. "However, Sergeant Barnes ran as soon as they were clear of the station and has not been sighted since."

Not that Grant could know it, or Steve could know it where he was being patiently but firmly kept talking in place by Bruce, but Bucky had run back to their apartment and was even now sat on Grant's bed like a lifeless puppet waiting for someone to come and animate him once more.

Grant let out a sigh and dropped his scone into the coffee to turn into sludge at the bottom. He fixed Sam in an understanding gaze and stood up. "Please don't say anything else. Steve will need you more than I will. He's probably the wrong person to be with Dr. Banner right now. If Bucky is gone-- He's just gone. We spent months-- well. You know how it's like looking for a ghost," Grant said, putting the lid back onto his coffee to keep his hands warm. All of his things, minus his wallet and his keys, we're now evidence from a crime scene. His books and his enjoyment of college were gone. He'd already been fired from his job for negative publicity but he was planning to quit anyway and would instead accept the firing and the promise of a good letter of recommendation if he wanted it because he had been kind and hard working.

"I'm going home. I'll be fine by myself. Better off. Please Sam. Let me go."

He placed a few dollars on the table for his portion of the bill, which still felt like a week's worth of salary to him, and headed down the stairs to the subway.

The protestors were gone from his home but he was quick up the stairs anyway, pulling open and slamming the door shut quickly.

In the dark of the living room, back against the door, he let everything out, just before he crossed the apartment towards his own room to muffle his tears.

It was only by chance that he spotted bare feet on the floor. Bucky....?

He didn't stop himself from rushing forward.

Bucky heard the footsteps on the stairs, he heard the door open and close, and he heard the sobbing out in the living room. He didn't move, he just waited until Grant was right there in front of him, all familiar skinny body and blond hair and agonised blue eyes that should never be so full of hurt.

He was still coated in blood and gore, the police had wanted to take his clothes for evidence and let him shower, but nobody had dared to go near him to enforce it and he hadn't reacted to any of their requests that he undress. His eyes, when he looked up at the newcomer into the bedroom, were a strange blend of the Soldier's blankness and a genuine horrified grief.

It felt like he had shattered their whole world today, and he didn't know how to fix it. He had hurt Grant, Steve, Tony... everyone he cared about, and the fallout would ripple outwards for a long time. He didn't speak, he just stared.

Perhaps it was good that Bucky had only been in that black robe, settling in for another hour session, when Finney had destroyed the moment. There wasn't much to take from him. His clothing was all in plastic bags, taken from the scene of the crime. His shoes too. Grant wanted to care about all of that. And he really wanted to tend to any hurt he might have had from running back here. He wanted to make some statement about Stark not exactly helping him to clean up.

Instead, Grant knelt by where Bucky was, carefully trying to will some sort of emotion on the older man's face.

"You gotta help me out here, Buck. You gotta meet me part of the way. I can do the rest but I don't even have a map on where I'm supposed to be right now. I keep making wrong turns. I keep leaving you like this--"

If Grant felt such deep and unending sorrow, Steve's grief had to be deeper. So much deeper now to know that he'd allowed this to happen by never even trying to save the man.

"Please please come back to us, Bucky. Tell me how to help."

"I was wrong."

The words were quiet and brittle, not the usual emotional blankness, and Bucky's hands both tightened into fists all of a sudden. He kept his eyes fixed on Grant, though, as if he were a guiding waylight in the darkness, and only by following him could he possibly hope not to be dashed on the rocks.

"I thought I was Bucky, that I could be the good man you both know. I thought I didn't want to kill again. I was wrong. I saw him and I remembered what he did to me, and I killed him, it felt good. I'd kill him again."

He flexed the metal hand, dulled from its usual shine with blood.

"I was wrong, I'm not a person, I'm still a weapon."

"How can a weapon want anything? How can a weapon do anything on its own, Buck," Grant said, trying to keep a hold of that need Bucky showed him by wrapping his fingers around his still fine jawline. "You wanted him dead for doing... For doing terrible things to you. They have video evidence of it." He didn't know what. He hadn't asked. He had no morbid curiosity to know. "The only problem you're having is reconciling your wants," he whispered, putting himself into the position of being the only object currently visible in his life. Grant wanted to be his guide but Bucky had to really want it too.

That was the problem here. Bucky kept slipping, not back into the Soldier, but into something darker. He kept forgetting that he was a good person. He kept forgetting the past and his youth. And that's where they would find the heart that Bucky thought he lost, once his memory had recovered. And it would likely take years.

"You want to stop killing and you want to kill the people that hurt you. You've just forgotten why it's wrong to want one thing and not another. I can help. We all can help. But we can't... We can't do it here. Not where people know is. We need to go someplace until you find your balance again. You just have to trust me, Buck. Completely. More than you have been."

It was when he got into places like this inside his head, the darker places, that it was easy to forget that there were people he loved him despite all that he had done and all that he was now. Not just Grant and Steve, but also Tony, even Sam had been nice to him, and that meant that he had options.

His eyes never left Grant's face, tracking him when he moved in closer and not stopping him get into his personal space, though he would move away if Grant tried to touch his bloodstained arms and hands.

"I do trust you."

If there was anyone in this world that he would trust completely, it was Steve and Grant.

"I'll do whatever you say."

Grant's jaw was set and he stood without trying to get his fingers into the drying red-brown sludge on Bucky's arm. "Wait here. I need to call Steve." He fished the phone out of his pocket and, after a smile at Bucky, dialed the number and stepped into the kitchen. As the phone rang, he washed his hands as his mother taught him to do since he was always so sick. He pulled out two glasses from the cabinet above the sink and filled both with the water in the pitcher in the refrigerator.

By that point, Steve had finally answered and Grant smiled to hear his voice. "We need to go back to where you found me for a little while," Grant said. "Everyone that matters to him. He needs a safe place to remember how to be a man. Can you arrange that?"

When the call was over, he carried the water back to Bucky and suggestion he ought to drink the glass down to rehydrate him.

"We're going somewhere no one can find us. We need to get that blood off of you first. Can I-- Will you let me help you...?"

Steve was honestly just relieved that Bucky had come back home rather than run off entirely, and it showed in the slightly tremulous cadence of his voice. He promised that he'd speak to Tony, and he'd leave Sam in charge of the Avengers for a while with Tony's legal team left on trying to clear Bucky's name for whenever they got back. He just told Grant to make sure Bucky stayed there, and to be sure he knew that none of them were angry at him.

What he had done was justified. Steve didn't often condone murder, though he would kill in battle like any soldier, but for what that man had done... yeah, he deserved it.

Bucky took the glass of water from Grant and cupped it in his flesh hand as if he weren't quite sure what to do with it, though he did take a gulp or two when Grant told him that he should drink. He frowned, though, when Grant mentioned cleaning up.

"I don't want to hurt you, I don't know if I can trust myself not to. If you want me to get clean, I'll get clean."

"You would never hurt me." It wasn't just Bucky's promise, it was Grant's belief in it. "You didn't hurt the police that came for you. You didn't hurt the students. You only hurt one man who deserved to be hurt and you kept him from continuing to hurt who knows how many other people."

Grant took the glass from Bucky and offered him his hand. He would wriggle his fingers if Bucky didn't take it and if he decided to just go to the bathroom without the helping hand, well Grant would follow him there, pulling off his own clothes. Maybe it was an intimate thing to shower with someone but in this case, Grant was using it like a trust exercise.

Bucky said he trusted him, but how far would that trust go?

He wanted to touch Bucky. He wanted to be the one to wash the blood from his skin. It was symbolic perhaps but he couldn't help himself. It would be better if Steve was here but Steve had a part to play with Tony to get that machine on the compound up and running again.

People seemed to have a mistaken view that Bucky and the Soldier were two separate people, different identities in the same head, but that wasn't true. The commands were implanted, but the Soldier was just who Bucky had become after years of torture, and they were still intermingled a lot. It helped, it wasn't healthy but it helped, to retreat behind the emotionlessness of that learned mask when things got too much.

It's why he moved to the shower when it became obvious that Grant did want him to wash, though he didn't touch those outstretched fingers and he was infinitely careful not to brush up against Grant's perfect pale skin once they were under the spray of water.

Even though the water was hot with a good pressure, the blood had been given hours to dry. It came off the flesh arm easier, sluiced away, but it stained the metal one with harder to remove evidence of what he had done. He made no attempt to actually wash himself, just stood beneath the spray of water and watched Grant carefully.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going back to where the three of us started together," Grant replied, making careful movements so not to hurt the man under the spray with him. They had been together in the shower many times since they had met, mostly due to Grant being less than capable of getting in good and clean breaths, and now it was time to help Bucky the way Bucky had helped him. "I believe Mr. Stark will be coming as well. He's important to you too. From what I know about the technology, it's not impossible to move through the space between our two realities often. He can visit. If the Avengers need Captain America, Steve can come back. But for a little while, we can go to a place where you can live without so much stress. And where you can start to heal."

Grant could still go to college there. Steve would be with them. And no one will have ever heard of the Soldier.

He lifted his hand to place lightly against Bucky's chest at a clear patch of perfect skin. He still found the man beautiful. Even in his pain, he was beautiful. His fingers would travel to the stained metal if Bucky didn't pull back and Grant would rub the drying blood from it. He could discard the stains. He could help Bucky be whole again if only he was allowed.

Somewhere safe with Steve, Grant, and Tony sounded like heaven to him. But he had no idea how they would survive back there. He had got lucky once or twice in using new money to pay for things, but Tony's endless bank accounts wouldn't even be active at a time when he was older than his own father.

"We don't have any money."

Bucky flinched when Grant touched him, but he didn't actually make any moves to pull away until those fingers reached anywhere bloodstained, and then he twitched back so violently that he might accidentally send Grant into the tiled wall by mistake. Though hopefully not enough to hurt him.

"Don't."

The cold tile against water warmed skin was more of a shock than the push back and Grant hissed for a moment until he could warm himself up again. His jaw was set. "You're talking about a man with more money than seems humanly possible to have and who can build a machine to take us to another dimension. He can fabricate money for us to live on. And when that runs out, we can get jobs. I have experience now from the coffee shop. Everyone would love to hire Steve. There will be less questions asked and you don't have to prove who you are..."

Grant held out his hand again, delicately, as if trying to touch broken glass without being injured in the process.

"You said you trusted me. You love me. You would never, ever hurt me. You've helped me through so much. Now please. Please let me help you. You're not going to ruin me in the process. I'm going to bring you back. You're going to feel as human as you are, Bucky. Steve and Stark and I are going to make it possible. But you have to let me touch you, Buck. I can show you that not every touch hurts."

Grant was exactly what he needed right now. Soothing but practical, with small steps to let Bucky obey. He wanted to trust, he really did. He trusted Grant and Steve more than anyone in the world, definitely more than he trusted himself, but even that wasn't absolute. He didn't know if he was capable of absolute trust any more.

But he firmed his jaw and braced himself still to let Grant touch the sticky surface of his metal arm, dried and crusted blood caught between the plates.

"Tell me that you're not lying to me."

Grant didn't lie, just like Steve, but Bucky needed to hear it. This seemed too much like the fantasy promises of a happily ever after. He wanted it, he really did, he just couldn't believe it was possible.

"I'm so tired, Grant. I'm tired of taking a step forwards and fifteen steps back. I'm tired of being scared of myself, of everyone around me, for everyone around me. Maybe it would be better to put me down."

"I am not now and will never lie to you," Grant said with certainty as he picked up the nail and foot brush from the soap dish to help clean Bucky's arm off. "So I need you to understand and believe me when I say that I will never let you kill yourself. You're not an animal to put down, Buck. You're a man who is loved and who will be so completely missed if you were to leave us." Grant couldn't keep the tears from his eyes. He was not overly emotional, tempered by poverty and the depression and illness after illness. But when anything came to Bucky, oh, it did hurt him to see him so low.

Only two minutes later, the door opened and a familiar voice called Grant's name. Blue eyes brightened under the spray and he stepped back to open the glass shower door.

"In here, Steve!"

They were all supposed to be together, the three of them, and so the timing couldn't have been better. Steve pushed open the partially closed bathroom door and immediately pulled his shirt off as he stepped out of his sneakers. Grant handed over the scrub brush.

They could wash Bucky clean between them, soft hands and strong forcing Bucky to remember that he was better than he thought himself to be. And that, as Tony Stark kept saying, he was one of the luckiest people alive to have love like he did.

They were good people, two of the best that the world had ever produced, and Bucky was a lucky bastard that even one of them loved him. He let them both hold him and clean him and dry him off, he let them dress him in soft loose clothes, he let them pack up a bag for him, he let them make him eat, and then he let them load him into a discreet black car with tinted windows and drive him to the compound.

Where Bruce had been working with Tony to get this up and running again, and where the other Avengers had been preparing for time without two of their main members. There were instructions on how to reach them on the other side, a huge suitcase full of old money that would be enough to set them up like billionaires for a year or two.

But Bruce was a bit distracted, and he kept glancing up at Tony every so often as if he wanted to say something. But Tony was already worried enough about Barnes - an odd friendship, that, but good for him - and so he kept his mouth shut.

"So I'm thinking-- one week there and two back. I can't just disappear. I have a company to run and I've seen my dad's early work. Oh shit. My dad's work. Maybe I'll find him and punch him. Like Cap punched Hilter. You know, people might pay to see that. Stark-Off. Two Stark's enter. Only the most dashing and heroic leaves. I'm the most dashing and heroic by the way, Banner. In case you got confused there by the glamor and intrigue and you're not listening to me again."

Tony exhaled slowly and then grabbed for the tablet that Bruce was holding, looking over the calculations. They were all perfect. Not a single one forgetting to have itself carried over.

"Are you going to miss me?" He'd gotten more aggressive with his friendships since he'd met Barnes and had the super solider pretty much force his friendship on him too. It was comforting and also a little bit frightening to see Tony really try to force himself to be more human and likable. "I'll bring you some disgusting forties chocolate. Okay?"

"If the way you show you miss me is by bringing me forties chocolate, then maybe you can try not to miss me, okay?"

He offered a small smile, but it didn't quite reach his big, soulful eyes. His fingers, too, continued to fidget in the way he always did when he was slightly stressed about something. Not enough to code green, not by a long shot, but still worrying over something that he wasn't about to tell Tony.

It just wasn't fair to burden Tony with this.

"You know you're going to have to keep a low profile, right? No shouting about how you're Tony Stark, that's just asking for trouble in the timeline of their reality."

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Omg enough signal for a waiting room tag, a miracle!

Yay!

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