fossilised | For Steve

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."

"I wasn't even born. No one would know me and Jesus, Banner. I'm not going to go and ruin Grant's whole timeline even more. Honestly. I'm just going to make sure everyone gets settled and Barnes is all right and then I'll be back to be all over TV spreading the good news about how we should give people second chances." He gave Bruce a big, significant look.

Tony might have gotten better lately but this was no miracle cure and he had no idea what was making Bruce so twitchy because he wasn't paying attention to Bruce that way. They were friends but not best of friends. He wanted to change that, though. When he came back. Bruce was probably the second smartest guy on the planet and they really needed to unite together!

Tony set the tablet down and wandered off to the far corner of the room, humming a little and shaking his hips a little. The man liked to dance when he was happy. Or about to make a break through. And sure. Today had been stressful, but they were ending it on a positive note with a little Doctod Who or Star Trek transdimensional vacationing.

That would make anyone happy.

"Oh. Hey! We should test our communication. I want to make sure you can talk to me whenever you get too lonely here."

"You know, I don't see that happening."

Bruce offered a small and slightly taut smile at Tony, but he took the little hand held communication device that was connected through the portal and should ring into the landline phone of wherever Tony got them established. They currently had the modified 1940s phone plugged into the lab sockets.

"But I think you should stay with them for longer, maybe let us handle it here."

Definitely let them handle it.

Tony did not want to be here for the news that was bound to break soon.

It was Bruce's pushing him to stay that got a strange look from the inventor. That didn't make sense. Leaving wasn't something he ought to be doing but Grant had asked and Grant was a big sack of puppies on two spindly legs. Who could say no to that? Tony paused in what he was doing to glance back over his shoulder at Bruce.

"Are we breaking up? Are you sending me to the 40s to meet someone else so I'll forget all about you? Won't do it, Banner. You need me. You might not think you do, but late at night, when you're all alone, you'll lay in bed thinking that, somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moonlight-- No wait. That's mice." Sometimes he got his old cartoons mixed up in his waxing poetry. He turned fully to cross his arms over his chest and gaze at the scientist. "Why do you want me to take an extended vacay? I have to keep me thumb on the Barnes stuff."

Helping to heal the man on both ends? Yes, that was what a hero did. Cap would give him a gold metal for this.

"You look extra worried. It's not that time of the month is it? Are you also part werewolf or something?"

Okay, so apparently Tony never did the easy thing and for a second Bruce wanted to punch him. Why couldn't the man just agree and say he would stay in the past for a while and let them all handle it? Why did he have to be such a cocky and smart son of a bitch? He folded his arms.

"There are just some files that have come to light, stuff from the bits of SHIELD that probably intersected with HYDRA, and Natasha has received a tip off that the papers have got hold of them and plan to publish them."

He crossed the room to his bag and pulled out an old tablet, slowly drawing up the email he'd received from Natasha with the attachments.

"I want you to remember before you look at this, how many pieces of paper you've probably signed without reading them just because someone put them under your nose."

Bruce held it out. It was a pretty short document on SHIELD headed notepaper, dated 1959, and it authorised the use of "new maintenance and wiping technology research for the Asset". It didn't get any clearer, all oblique language, but it was pretty clearly about Bucky. And it was signed and authorised by 'Howard Stark, Director of SHIELD'.

Tony didn't need a further reason to hate his father and though every new piece of evidence about the man being an asshole did make him feel marginally better, this? Oh, this did something else. Tony felt a sickness well up inside of his stomach and the hand holding the document trembled. He was quick to put it down and quick to turn away from Banner and quick to turn his anger, as always, to the wrong people.

"How long have you had this?" He was tired of people deciding what was the best course of action for him was. He was tired of being one of the leading experts on technology, consultant for governments and universities around the world and he was still the last to know about everything. It was lucky that the old handset from the 40s was resilient because Tony shoved it off of the table with his hand, balled uo the document, and turned to bounce it off of Bruce's chest. "Know what? Don't answer that. Makes sense that dad was probably HYDRA.That's how they infiltrated SHIELD so easily. They were right there when it started. No, do not-- You do not get to say another god damned word to me," he hissed when Bruce turned gentle, placating eyes and hands towards him.

He was done with people hiding everything from him.

"J, I need a full and complete dredging of everything SHIELD has. I don't care if we left it alone out of confidentiality clauses in the past. I want everything. Every last god damned thing. Send it to my garage at the compound." He slammed open the glass down he had watched Bucky make out with both Rogerses a few months prior through and stormed across the lawn.

"Yes, sir." For once, JARVIS had no witty comeback or chiding words, he knew when to obey an order without question and this was definitely one of those times.

Bruce, however, wasn't quite so obedient.

After a second to rescue the balled up document and push it into his pocket, he jogged after Tony through the door and out onto the lawn. It hurt to see a friend like this, even a friend that he didn't know that well yet.

"Tony, you don't know that he was HYDRA," he said, keeping pace with the other man, voice low and soft and soothing. "It makes sense that SHIELD resources were being funnelled away to deal with HYDRA projects and, if Howard was anything like you, he might have been trusted to just sign papers without reading them. Just because his signature was on there, it doesn't mean that he had anything to do with the Winter Soldier project. Besides, if he did, why would they kill him?"

It had to be hard, though, facing up to the possibility that your old man had even inadvertently done something so terrible.

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