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Bucky is 10 years old and still going by Jane. She hates wearing skirts and she hates wearing dresses and she hates her name. There’s just something so uncomfortable about people looking at her and calling her “a pretty little lady.”
She asks her mom if she can cut her hair.
Her mom says no.
Bucky is 13 years old and on a whim binds her breast and puts her hair in a cap. She just wants to see what it’s like; she doesn’t think anything of it.
That day she meets a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. He’s skinny as a stick and is getting his face pounded in in an alley by a boy two times his size. She pulls the bigger boy away and socks him in the nose.
There’s blood on her knuckles and it hurt so much, but the smile she gets when she reaches her hand out and introduces herself as James is worth it.
The next day she cuts her hair. She looks in the mirror and doesn’t feel so uncomfortable in her own skin.
When her mother finds her in the bathroom surrounded by fallen locks of brown hair she cries.
She can’t bring herself to care.
Bucky is 16 and somehow Steve hasn’t realized. She’s pulled him out of too many fights to count and stopped talking to anyone who ever knew her by Jane. Someone calls Steve her fella and she punches them in the face.
It doesn’t hurt.
She stops thinking of herself as Jane because Steve calls her Bucky and that’s all that matters. She thinks maybe she should tell Steve the truth, tell him that she’s been lying this whole time, but every time she introduces herself as Bucky and gets called a guy her heart twitches in her chest and she has to keep herself from smiling.
Her mother died two years ago and her father doesn’t give a damn. He stopped caring the moment he reached for the bottle.
Bucky is 18 and thinking of himself as a he. His chest is constantly sore, whether from working at the docks or from having to bind tighter as he grows older, he doesn’t know. He lives with Steve after his mother died a few months ago. Between him working labor and Steve painting signs for shops and making comics for the paper, they manage to scrape by.
Steve knows, now. He walked in on Bucky changing a year ago. He called Bucky a dame and got a mean right hook to the jaw. Steve knows better than to see him as anything but a boy and Bucky doesn’t have to hog the bathroom in the mornings anymore.
Bucky is 19 and realizes he’s in trouble.
Every time Steve walks into the room he looks up and smiles, his heart warming. Every time he sees Steve alone when he’s flirting with a pretty broad, he gets pangs in his chest. His lungs tighten every time he has to nurse Steve’s wounds, the world stops every time Steve does something stupid, and when it’s just the two of them in their shitty apartment, he always thinks of how he could kiss him. Right then.
But those thoughts are wrong and no one can know, so he keeps flirting with the broad anyway. He’s living in enough sin as it is. What’s one more to add to the list?
Bucky is 25 and there’s a war going on. Just about once a week he sees Steve come home looking like a kicked puppy. He consoles him, says that maybe they’ll let him join next time, but secretly he’s happy because there’s no place for Steve in a warzone. He’s small and weak. He can hardly make it through a winter in Brooklyn, how is he supposed to make it through a battlefield?
Bucky doesn’t tell Steve this. He isn’t that selfish.
But then one day Bucky comes home to a letter and suddenly he can’t breathe. Steve’s out watching a picture and Bucky’s curled up in the corner of their bathroom, panicking.
He can’t go to war he can’t be drafted he can’t leave Steve Steve will die without him he has to make sure Steve takes his medicine and that Steve eats and that Steve doesn’t get his killed by some asshole with anger issues.
He wants to shred the letter, rip it up, to burn it.
But he just hides it and the next day he comes home from the docks to see it open on the table, Steve sitting on his (their?) bed asking, “why didn’t you tell me?”
There’s no turning back now.
Bucky is 28 and everything hurts. He doesn’t know where he is, he hardly knows who he is, but he knows someone is talking.
“Sergeant James Barnes, 32557.”
Someone is saying those words over and over again. ‘Is it me?’ he thinks, disconnected. He can’t tell.
“Sergeant James Barnes, 32557.”
There is a man standing above him, small, pudgy, with circular glasses. He is saying things he can’t understand. He is holding a needle. Bucky struggles against the bonds holding him down. The needle is injected into his arm and everything hurt it burns it burns so much-
“Sergeant James Barnes, 32557.”
He’s praying someone will hear him. He doesn’t care whom. He just wants it to end. There’s the sound of machine whirring and a piece of rubber is being forced into his mouth and it feels like all of his cells are exploding. Someone screams. It might be him
“Sergeant James Barnes, 32557.”
He doesn’t feel anything. Just emptiness.
“Sergeant James Barnes, 32557.”
“Bucky?” someone says. Someone is there. It might be the doctor. He doesn’t move. He’s heard these voices before. They’re not real.
But then someone’s removing the straps and touching his shoulder and he can see a face and wonderful face.
“Steve?” he asks, not believing. He’s dreamt of this but it feels so real. He knows it isn’t, but he can pretend.
Steve lifts helps him sit up. He’s never done that before.
“Steve,” he says, more relieved. This might be real. Steve might be here.
“I thought you were dead,” Steve says. Bucky leans against him for support and realizes Steve is big. He’s huge.
“I thought you were smaller,” he breathes, unsure of what’s happening. Is this a trick? Is he hallucinating? How could he even dream of this? This is beyond anything he’s ever imagined.
“What’s happened to you?”
“I joined the army.”
Bucky believes him.
But then they’re moving down the corridor and everything hurts (do dreams hurt? Do you feel pain in dreams?) and he realizes his shirt is torn. His breasts are unbound.
“Wait,” he whispers, slowing for a moment. Steve pauses, looking at him.
“I- I need to- They can’t see me-“ he desperately gestures at his chest, unable to form the words. Steve nods, looking around.
Bucky is still 26 but he’s walking next to Steve, and he’s alive. Bucky’s alive and Steve is alive and Steve’s a hero.
Steve gets his own team. Steve’s Captain America. Steve-
Steve is in love. Bucky can feel his heart twisting in his chest (at least what’s left of it, but he can’t be so sure after what happened with Dr. Zola).
Steve draws pictures of Peggy at night, when he thinks Bucky is asleep.
Bucky hardly sleeps. When he does, he wakes up sweating and screaming and ends up curling next to Steve because he’s weak he’s so weak and Steve doesn’t love him and it hurts, hurts so much-
Bucky doesn’t give a damn about his age because it doesn’t matter if Steve’s just going to get himself killed.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Steve!” he says, breathing heavily, full of relief and anger. “You can’t just do things like that. Just because you have the body of a fucking wrestler doesn’t mean you can just go throwing yourself around grenades like that!”
“I’m fine, Bucky. Really, I’m fine,” Steve sighs, exasperated, as Bucky checks everywhere he can for damage.
“No,” he puts a hand up. “You don’t get to say you’re fine. You said you’re fine when you were half dead from pneumonia. You said you were fine when Rob Bentz broke your wrist. You get to shut the hell up and tell me if this hurts.”
“Watch out, Steve’s dame is on the rampage,” Dum-Dum laughs to the other Commandos. Bucky freezes.
“Buck,” Steve whispers. Bucky shoulders tense as he turns around and puts on the deadliest glare he can while he marches forward.
“Say it again,” he dares, inches away from Dum-Dum’s face.
He obviously doesn’t know what he did wrong, just gives a pale-faced shake of his head.
“Buck, he didn’t mean it,” Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, tries to tug him back, but Bucky just shrugs it off.
“Say. It. Again.” He demands again.
No response.
Bucky just turns away and stomps off.
Steve is 28 and is looking at Peggy as if she hung the stars and the moon.
A year ago Bucky would be looking at her too, all curves and sly smiles, but there’s no room in his heart for soft edges. It’s been sliced up too many times to have any.
Bucky doesn’t care how old he is because he’s hanging on to a piece of metal for dear life and Steve’s reaching out his hand and calling his name.
Bucky loves Steve so much as he reaches out to take it, just like he’s always wanted to, but there’s a snap and there’s so much noise and someone’s calling his name and he’s
f a l
l i n g
. . .
He doesn’t have a name and he doesn’t have an age. He wakes up to bright light and can faintly hear someone talking but it doesn’t matter because he hurts he hurts everywhere and he’s calling someone’s name because it’s important, so important, but he can’t remember why can’t he remember?
He wakes up to whispers and bright lights. There are men in white coats walking around him, poking and prodding. He’s strapped on a table like he’s an animal but of course he’s an animal because he isn’t human. To be human you need to have a name and a heart and there’s a name in his mind somewhere but he can’t reach it.
He doesn’t think it’s his anyway.
They keep saying “the girl” and “she” and he has no idea who they’re referring to until he realizes they’re talking about him. The man poking at his flesh arm calls him a girl and suddenly his hands on his throat because they’re wrong they’re so wrong they don’t understand and if he was here he would understand and he would save him and everything would be-
The world turns dark, but not before he can feel the crunch of bones under his fingers.
They don’t call him “she” after that.
He is the asset and all he does is kill. He is the best of the best and he does it without anyone ever realizing it. He rarely uses a gun, but when he does it’s deadly. He usually uses poisons or fakes car crashes or stages accidents. He has a touch of finesse and after each time they take him and put him into the chair and put the rubber in his mouth and then someone screams and-
He is the soldier and he is tasked with training this girl. She is young, but she is good. She is great. She could be the best. They go on mission after mission but suddenly they realize that maybe they don’t have to kill everyone. Maybe they can let the children live and maybe they don’t have to take out all the guards because there are others ways but someone disagrees and he’s put into the chair and forgets and then everything turns cold.
He wakes up and they say “one last time” (they’ve said that before, so many times, he knows but he can’t remember how).
He doesn’t do it with finesse. He doesn’t stage an accident. He doesn’t minimize casualties. He kills because he’s a weapon and that’s all he’s made to do. He’s looking down the barrel of his rifle and sends six bullets into his target, but he wasn’t alone. There’s a man. He’s chasing him. The man is chasing his and he’s throwing something, but he catches it. He catches it and the man stops, and he sees his opening.
He escapes.
He’s fighting for his life, now. He hasn’t had this much trouble with a mission since… (He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything but he knows this man is his mission and he never fails a mission.)
And then he loses his mask and the man’s staring at him.
“Bucky?”
Who’s Bucky Who’s Bucky Who’s Bucky Who’s Bucky (you are) Who’s Bucky Who’s Bucky Who’s Bucky.
But the man ends up surrendering so it doesn’t matter in the end.
But it does matter. He’s sitting shirtless and everyone is pointedly not look at him.
Someone is asking him something but he can’t respond because he can almost remember something but he can’t he knows he can’t and he knows he won’t.
Then his cheek stings and he looks up at his handler, confused.
“The man on the bridge,” he says, feeling even more lost than before. “I knew him.”
“You met him earlier this week on an assignment.”
He’s right. He did meet him earlier. But he’s also wrong because he knows that man. He knows his face and his voice and his eyes, that striking shade of blue.
“But I knew him.”
He sounds as broken as he feels and he doesn’t hear anything except the ringing in his ears and he knew him. He knew him the way he knows cold ice on his skin or a knife in his hands.
But they’re putting the rubber in his mouth and leaning him back, and he knows what’s coming.
“I’m not going to fight you,” and the man drops his shield. The asset doesn’t understand. He’s going to kill this man. He has to. It’s his mission. It’s his mission. It’s his mission. It’s his mission. It’s his mission
(He’s a broken record looping over and over again.)
And the fight continues and this man keeps insisting that he knows him. He doesn’t.
His punches are getting weak. He’s weak. His hits are slow and desperate. He wants to kill this man. He wants to save this man.
“Then finish it,” the man says, bloody and broken below him. He’s pinned him down, them both barely still in the hellicarrier as everything crumbles around them.
“’Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”
The asset just stares. He’s not who this man thinks he is. He’s not anyone’s friend. He’s not a human. But this man says he knows the asset and the asset knows that he isn’t lying. He has to be lying, but he isn’t.
But then the floor gives way and the man is falling away, and the only thing he can think is ‘you used to be smaller’ as he barely hangs on, watching the man hit the water.
He dives in after him.
The voice at the museum says his name is James Buchanan Barnes and that he’s 26 years old. It says he was Steve Roger’s best friend. It says that he died seventy years ago.
The asset stares at the man whose face he is wearing. Steve Rogers loved this man, once.
Maybe he can be a man Steve Rogers loves too.
He thinks he might be James Barnes and he’s 92 years old.
Steve His mission is staying in the Stark Tower, a pretentious skyscraper built to put a brand name on New York City.
He spends a lot of time watching. He spends most of his time outside of the tower, at a coffee shop filled with caffeine-addled college students where he doesn’t look so out of place. He is watching the security, studying, memorizing. Next he’ll check the security, make sure it’s safe. If he can get through then anybody can, and that means that Steve could be danger.
At least that’s what he tells himself.
But then there’s a flash of red hair and a ghost is sitting next to him
“Natalia,” he whispers.
“You’re going by James now, yes?” she asks, sipping her coffee cup delicately.
“No.”
“Bucky?”
“No.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“You aren’t subtle. You’re getting sloppy.”
Doesn’t he know it. He’s come to the same place multiple times, he’s been lazy in checking for anyone tailing him. He still hasn’t checked the digital security on Steve’s floor.
“I’ve been busy,” he lies.
They sit there in silence, him watching the tower with feigned interest. He’s hyper-aware of her next to him.
“You should talk to him.”
He doesn’t ask whom she’s talking about. He just shakes his head.
“He’s going to go after you. The only reason he hasn’t yet is because we’ve convinced him you’ll come to him. I hate being wrong.”
She’s gone in a blink. He isn’t surprised.
He doesn’t go to see Steve. He’s dangerous, volatile. He may not remember much but he remembers enough to know that he can’t put Steve at risk like that.
But Natalia was right. Steve comes after him.
He doesn’t find him, he hasn’t become that sloppy, but there’ve been some close calls.
He’s decided that he can protect Steve better if he’s closer, which is how he ends up undetected in the kitchen of Steve’s floor in Stark Tower.
He doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he ends up just standing there awkwardly for hours, waiting for Steve to come back.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep.
“Bucky?” He jerks awake to the sound of someone saying his name.
No. Not his name.
“Bucky,” he repeats as a whisper. “Look at you. When was the last time you showered?”
He just shrugs. It hasn’t been a priority.
He lets Steve lead him to the bathroom. He lets Steve strip him down. He lets Steve turn on the shower.
He’s staring at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t grow stubble, he has long hair, and his breasts are exposed.
His mind flashes to a time so long ago, him looking at himself in a mirror, and hating what he saw.
He hates what he sees.
Steve comes back in, just moments later, with a towel. Steve comes back in to see him clawing at his chest, pulling on his hair, scratching at his left shoulder.
“Bucky!” he says, dropping the towel to grab his hands. He doesn’t resist.
“What are you doing?” he asks, holding his wrists delicately.
“They’re wrong,” he whispers, looking down. He can feel drops of water on his face. He may be crying. “They’re wrong. They’re not mine.”
Steve pulls him into a hug. “Oh, Bucky,” he whispers, his voice cracking.
He just stands there, accepting the embrace but not returning it.
Steve leads him to the shower. He expects it to be cold, like when they hosed him off before they put him in ice. It’s not. It’s warm. The water is streaming down his body and he just stands there, taking it in. His injuries sting.
Steve takes a bottle and pours it in his hands.
“I’m going to wash your hair,” he says softly, reaching toward his head. He doesn’t move, and Steve takes that as encouragement.
He leans back into the finger massaging his scalp, giving a small, content sigh. It’s strange, how kindly Steve treats him. No one else has ever treated him like this before. No one has ever done anything for him before.
The shower is over and he’s sitting on Steve’s bed wearing Steve’s clothes. He’s hunched over as much as he can. Steve wouldn’t let him bind after seeing the bruises and lacerations on and around his chest. He says it’s dangerous and that those need to heal. He says he’ll find something to bind it with properly.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he says, heading toward the door. “Please don’t leave.”
He doesn’t respond, but Steve closes the door behind and he’s left to his own thoughts. He doesn’t like being left to his own thoughts.
Steve comes back with two plates in hand. They have noodles on them. He brings him to the kitchen table and sits him down.
“You should eat.”
He just stares at the food, not moving to pick up the utensils.
“Please eat.”
“Bucky?”
Steve reaches a hand out carefully.
“I’m not him,” his head snaps up and Steve’s arm stops short.
“What?”
“I’m not him. I’m not the Bucky you remember.”
Steve looks at him for a moment. He hates that look on his face, the expression of pure wonder and amazement. He wants to take it off. He wants to scream and yell at him until he realizes he’s not who he thinks he is. He’s not his friend. He’s not Bucky. He’s not anyone.
He’s just a weapon. A weapon doesn’t think or feel. A weapon doesn’t have people look at it like it’s something to cherish, to take care of.
Like it’s something that matters.
The next time he goes into the bathroom there isn’t a mirror.
The next time he sleeps, he doesn’t even mean to. He was sitting next to Steve on the couch, but Steve had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
He wakes up with his metal hand around Steve’s throat and Steve’s hands pushing on his shoulders.
He doesn’t sleep for five days after that.
Every time he refuses a meal Steve looks at him with those sad, sad, eyes.
Every time he eats Steve looks so proud, and how can he refuse that?
The process is slow, but he’s beginning to remember. Sometimes the memories hit him like bricks, seeing Steve sitting in his chair with a sketchbook, seeing a knife in the kitchen (since then Steve’s removed them all).
Sometimes it’s not so harsh. Sometimes it’s just the feeling of Steve’s back against his, of Steve’s laugh, of Steve’s eyes.
But sometimes he still wakes up and he’s gotten Steve into a headlock. Sometimes he feels like he’s still at HYDRA and it’s all fake. Nothing is real and he just sits there, staring at nothing.
Those days are the worst.
But then there are good days. There are days when he wakes up from a dream about Steve and him from before and goes into the kitchen to see Steve flipping pancakes (it’s the only thing he can cook properly).
They spend the day lazing about and watching movies. They’re still catching up on Disney.
He’s (still) 26 years old and he thinks he might just be Bucky.
He’s not the man Steve knew before the war, but Steve isn’t the same either.
He’s met the other Avengers now. Clint’s funny. He makes bad puns and teases everyone for everything. Tony’s an asshole. Bruce is nice. He’s always there when Bucky just needs a quiet place. Natalia Natasha is the same as ever. When Steve’s not there, or he just can’t see Steve’s face, he goes to her and she strokes his hair and talks to him in Russian.
The only person he hasn’t met is Thor, but he probably will soon.
Sam visits often. When he’s there he goes running with Steve. Sometimes Bucky goes too. Sam and Steve will go out, but Bucky doesn’t join them. He doesn’t think they’re ready.
Secretly, he thinks Steve agrees.
Bucky finally gets introduced to the Internet. He spends hours online, looking through news, watching dumb YouTube videos, and looking at blogs. Then he finds something.
Steve comes into their bedroom to find him on the bed tears streaming down his face as he stares at his computer.
“Bucky! What’s wrong?” he says, rushing over to console him.
Bucky just shakes his head, burying his face into his hands.
Steve looks at the page he’s on, and his eyes widen.
It’s an information page about LGBTQ terminology.
Transgender: denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.
“Oh, Buck,” Steve puts his arms around him, holding him tight and stroking his hair.
“I’m not alone,” Bucky whispers, pressing his head into Steve’s shoulder.
“You never have been.”
Bucky is still 94, and he remembers everything.
But most of all he remembers Steve.
One day they’re talking and he mentions something about him and Natasha. How he’s happy for them, happy that he’s happy with her.
Bucky throws his head back and laughs.
“Really, Steve? You think Nat and I…?” he can’t even finish the sentence. He’s doubled over in laughter.
“What?” Steve’s face is turning red. “I just thought, since you two seem to…”
“Seem to ‘fondue’?” Bucky teases, barely able to get it out.
He didn’t realize it was possible for Steve to blush even more.
“Aw, Stevie,” he puts on as thick of a Brooklyn accent he can. “You know you’re the only fella for me,” he says, pinching his cheek.
Steve doesn’t respond, just looks embarrassed.
Nat doesn’t stop laughing when Bucky tells her about it later.
“You could just tell him,” Clint says as Bucky turns away from watching Steve exit the lounge.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he crosses his arms and stares resolutely at the television. It’s some documentary about birds, he thinks. Clint has an odd sense of humor.
“Sure you don’t. Because you don’t spend have your time staring at Steve’s face like a lost puppy, and the other half staring at his ass.”
Bucky doesn’t deign it with a response.
“I mean I don’t blame you. It is a pretty nice ass, it’s just the rest of us Avengers think that you two might need an intervention.”
He’s still talking.
“Something along the lines of: ‘hey cap, sorry I tried to kill you, but I think I’m in love with you and have been since we were babies riding dinosaurs with all the other cavemen.”
He’s using his hands as puppets.
“’Oh, hi Bucky. I love you too.’ Then: MWAH,” he makes an obnoxious kissing sound.
“I’m sorry, are you still talking?” Bucky feigns, acting like he wasn’t paying attention.
Sometimes he hates the 21st century.
Steve and Bucky start doing a lot of research. They learn about terminology and hormones and educate themselves as much as they can. They also buy Bucky proper binders, ones that don’t damage his ribs.
They start discussing options: surgery, hormones, support groups. He hasn’t come out to the rest of the Avengers, not even Natasha. She probably knows anyway.
The Avengers have been busy since SHIELD fell apart. Rogue villains seem to have decided that since SHIELD’s gone then the world is ripe for the taking. Every few weeks some mad scientist attacks, whether with giant lasers or with mutated creatures, it depends.
Bucky has decided he’s done watching from the sidelines, waiting for Steve like a worried housewife. He needs to get in on the action. The only problem is he isn’t quite sure how to go about it.
“You know I’m probably the person who’s come closest to killing Captain America,” he casually mentions to Clint one day.
“You do realize that if you keep letting Steve go out there without someone to watch him he’s going to do something terribly heroic and get himself killed,” he says to Stark while he’s working on Bucky’s arm. “Also I’m pretty close to invincible. Especially with this metal monstrosity of an arm,” he gives a vague gesture to his left arm.
He thinks they finally got the idea when everyone was gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, and he said “You know I can kill almost everyone in this room in two minutes flat.”
Steve choked on his coffee, Clint let out an ugly snort, Banner just looked at him oddly, Stark looked like someone had just insulted his mother, and Nat just raised an eyebrow.
“What are you trying to say here? Do we have to watch out for a murder rampage?” Starks asks.
“I want in on the Avengers.”
It takes time. Steve keeps asking him if this is what he really wants and Stark keeps suggesting costume ideas or offering to put a grenade launcher into his arm. Bucky suggests another place to put a grenade launcher.
Eventually he manages to convince everyone that he has ‘completely healthy reasons to want to help out’ and ‘he will not murder random civilians’ and everything seems to work out.
It’s the first time Bucky’s out fighting with the Avengers and the villain has brought out the big guns. And by guns he means a small army with rocket launchers.
A skeleton army.
Just when Bucky’s wondering what the hell he did in a past life (well, he has a good idea) to deserve this, he sees something that makes his day about 200 time worse.
Most of the skeletons are dead. Well, are dead. All you had to do was rip their heads off and they just collapse. Bullets didn’t work very well against these enemies.
He’s just thinking that the whole fight is probably almost over when he sees it.
There’s a weird giant skeleton-looking thing. It looks like dinosaur bones, but bigger, and more alive. It also has armor surrounding its skeletal form.
“We’ve got incoming,” he yells into his comm.
“I see him,” Stark responds. Bucky stops in his tracks.
“What? Stark, you’re halfway across the city. No way you’ve got visual.”
“I have visual too,” Steve’s voice says. He’s around a hundred feet away and using his shield to decapitate skeletons.
“I know that. Stark, how close are you to it?”
“It’s attempting to shoot me with death beams as we speak.”
The one in front of Bucky doesn’t seem to be particularly aggravated. It’s just slowly making it’s way down the block, stepping on things and generally wreaking havoc. He hasn’t seen any death beams yet.
“Alright. No one engage by themselves. We don’t know how many of these there are so keep on lookout. Anyone going in should get backup,” Steve orders. There are murmurs of agreement from everyone.
Bucky turns around to deal with the skeletons advancing. He’ll deal with Dinosaur Bones in a minute.
“Behind you!” he hears someone shout, not specifying who they’re talking to. He instinctively turns around to see a massive, silent beam of light heading towards him. He doesn’t have time to move and-
“BUCKY!” someone shouts and he’s hit with heavy force out of no where. His body goes flying to the left. He lands on the roof of someone’s sports car.
Groaning, he gets up to see the dinosaur moving towards him, mouth open with a strange light inside.
No, not towards him, towards-
“Steve,” he breathes, pulling himself up to go towards Steve’s limp body, laying fifty feet behind of where Bucky was standing just moments earlier. Steve must’ve pushed him out of the way. Steve got hit.
His vision goes red.
But he doesn’t have time to get to Steve because the monster is already charging up another blast and Steve’s too far away, but the monster isn’t.
He runs as fast as he can, dodging explosions (goddamn rpgs) and shoving aside anything that gets in his way.
The dinosaur is probably twenty feet tall and twice as long. Bucky climbs up the side quickly. He gets on its head and frantically looks for its vertebrae where the neck connects with the skull.
But the armor is keeping him away, so with no weapons but his arm, he starts pulling a small chink in the armor. The creature starts thrashing around, but he just holds on as hard as he can.
It screams and rears up on its hind legs as Bucky tears the armor away, shooting two blasts from its jaws. He reaches his arms down, grabs the fragile bones, and pulls as hard as he can.
Another scream as the creature collapses into a pile of dust and bones.
“Nice one,” Clint says in his ear.
“Steve?” he asks, jumping down from his unstable perch.
No response.
“Steve?” he asks again, feeling more panicked. He’s running now, but Steve’s maybe a hundred feet away and not moving.
“Anyone got vitals on cap?” Stark asks.
“He’s- he’s not moving,” Bucky breathes, almost there. “Steve, hey buddy,” he says, crouching down to his knees. He lifts Steve’s shoulders up. “Steve, you there?”
He can vaguely register voices talking, but he doesn’t understand what they’re saying.
Steve’s body is dusty and dirty and his uniform is ripped and there’s blood trickling down his forehead and a giant gash in his right side, oozing blood.
The figure laying before him coughs, then opens his eyes.
“Hey, Buck,” he says weakly. “Did we win?”
Buck gives a small laugh, pressing his forehead to Steve’s chest. “Yeah, Stevie. We did.”
“Good,” he closes his eyes again.
“No, you’ve gotta stay with me,” he shakes him by the shoulders a little.
Steve doesn’t move.
“Steve, you’ve gotta open your eyes. Come on.”
He’s vaguely aware there are tears streaming down his face.
“Come on, Stevie. The battle’s over, we’ve gotta go home.”
“Steve,” his voice cracks as he curls around his best friends body, his head laying in his lap. “Steve please. Don’t do this.”
Someone’s calling for a medic.
“Don’t do this,” he repeats.
He rests his forehead against Steve’s, holding his face in his hands.
“I love you.”
Everything else is a blur. He’s being pulled away from Steve, and he fights. He fights because he won’t be taken away, not again. He fights but it’s to no avail because someone’s putting Steve onto a stretcher and Bucky’s arms are being held as he struggles.
He figures he must be pretty weak if he can’t break the hold.
He knows he shouts Steve’s name. He shouts until he’s hoarse and he’s sobbing and someone is stroking hair and whispering things to him but he doesn’t process them because all he can think about is Steve’s broken body lying in his arms.
He passes out, at some point.
He wakes up in a shirt and sweats in his own bed. He turns over to see if Steve’s awake. Then it hits him.
Immediately he’s up and out of bed, running down the hall until he runs right into something.
“I was just coming to check on you,” Nat’s standing in front of him.
“Steve,” is all he can say, beginning to push past her.
Her hand is suddenly on his arm with a vice-like grip, forcing him to look at her.
“He’s alive.”
It’s all he needed to hear. His whole body relaxes for a moment and his head feels too light for his shoulders and he swears he might just pass out again.
“He hasn’t woken up yet.”
That brings him back to reality. “What? Where is he?”
“James!” she snaps. “Calm down. His vitals are stable. I’ll take you to him.”
This time he only lets some of the tension out of his shoulders as he follows her through the tower.
“Hey Steve,” he says, sitting at his side. Steve’s laying in a bed with a metal frame, hooked up to an IV and breathing out of a tube. There’s a machine in the corner monitoring his heartbeat.
It’s shocking how frail he looks, even in this body. Bucky doesn’t think he’s seen him this pale since before the war.
Bucky doesn’t talk anymore, just takes Steve’s cold hand in his own colder one, and hangs on for dear life.
Steve wakes up five days later. Bucky isn’t allowed to see him for a while.
It’s hell.
He ends up just pacing around their apartment, constantly asking JARVIS for updates on Steve’s condition. Eventually the robot stops responding.
This continues for days because Bucky being there may stress the captain and that is dangerous in his condition. Bucky doesn’t think he’s hated doctors more in a long time.
But then the day is here and he hasn’t been allowed to see Steve in a week and he’s getting released from medical.
If he’s standing at the doorway, ringing his hands while he waits for Steve to knock, then no one has to know.
Then there is a knock on the door and he’s throwing it open and standing there in front of him is Steve.
He’s wearing a ratty pair of sweats and doesn’t have a shirt on, he has bruises just about everywhere, and he’s smiling the brightest fucking smile in the world.
Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen something more beautiful.
So maybe he hugs him a bit too tightly a bit too long, maybe his breath is staggered and maybe he’s holding for dear life.
It all feels a bit like a dream, especially when Steve holds him just as tightly, showing no indication of wanting to let go.
“Hey Stevie,” he laughs, probably sounding a bit hysterical.
“Hey, Buck,” he responds. His voice cracks a bit but Bucky doesn’t comment on it.
It’s Bucky who pulls away, shockingly. Bucky pulls away and Bucky tugs Steve into the apartment and Bucky shuts the door.
“Steve, there’s something we need to talk about,” he says, his hands shaking as he turns around to face him.
“What?” he’s still wearing that goddamn smile and Bucky’s heart flutters in his chest.
Bucky’s panicking because there’s no backing down now. He has to say it in the right way. He can’t mess this up.
“I love you,” he blurts out, immediately putting a hand over his mouth because that’s not what he meant to say at all.
Except it is.
But then Steve’s smile somehow gets even wider and he walks over to Bucky and cups his face with one hand.
“I love you too, Buck,” he says and Bucky can feel his warm breath against his skin and he doesn’t dare move because he doesn’t know what would happen if he does.
But then Steve’s lips are on his, moving softly and delicately, as if scared of scaring him away and Buck could laugh out loud because there’s no way Steve’s going to scare him away, not now.
So he responds. He responds and pulls Steve closer and shoves his hands in Steve’s hair but it doesn’t get any more heated, it stays chaste and ‘hell,’ he thinks. This might just be the hottest thing he’s ever experienced.
Bucky is 26 and 94 and things don’t magically get better. Bucky doesn’t stop waking up in the middle of the night, screaming, and Steve doesn’t stop waking up in a cold sweat, nightmares about cold air and ice on his skin haunting his mind. Steve doesn’t stop doing absolutely heroically stupid shit and Bucky doesn’t stop yelling at him for it. They’re both still recovering in so many ways but they’ve survived the impossible and beat the odds, and he has the utmost faith that they can do it again.
Once the universe gives you a fourth chance then he thinks it’s trying to tell you something. Maybe it’s about time he can have something for himself.