Chapter Text
1111111: End of Line
“And that . . .” Claire eased the needle from the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “Should be the last blood I ever have to draw from you.” She plugged the vial and swiped his skin with a cotton swab. “Usually I give the kids at my hospital an Iron Man sticker or something, but I’m guessing you might not be as impressed.”
Bucky managed a weak laugh. “So no more tests?”
“No more tests.” Claire slotted the vial in her carrying tray and took a step back. “You’re all cleared.”
“For what?”
She pressed her lips together. “For whatever you want.”
As if it were so easy.
Steve had stormed out of the final session without a single word after he’d forced Bucky to go through the sequence once more. Sam apologized profusely, but Bucky barely heard it. All he heard was the hum of his pulse in his ears and the echo of Steve’s voice, reading out those words he hated. All he saw was the way Steve’s eyes had tightened when Bucky admitted his deepest fear: that his love for Steve and his ability to commit awful acts might get all tangled up together.
He could spend his whole life protecting Steve all over again. Losing himself in the act, because it was easier than fighting. It’s how they had broken him, after all. Path of least resistance. Easier to become the soldier. Easier to become Steve’s guard dog but wishing he could be more, could mean more.
“You know . . .” Claire shifted her weight. “I don’t know what you’re planning, or even if you’re in the right place to start planning yet, but if you ever find yourself in Manhattan and need a safe place . . .”
Bucky smiled. “Thank you. Seriously, I appreciate it.” Claire smiled back, warm without being placating. “And thank you for—for everything you’ve done,” he said.
“It was an honor. But please—take care of yourself, all right? I have enough idiot vigilantes showing up half-dead on my doorstep.” She winked, then let herself out of Bucky’s suite.
She didn’t close the door behind her.
Bucky stood up and flexed his arm as he glanced out the door. No more guards. His eyes narrowed as he glanced up and down the corridor. It was mid-morning, the day after his final session, and only the distant sounds of workers in faraway corridors rang through the halls. No one had come to see him the night before, and only Claire had appeared that morning. Now he was getting a better idea of why: he was free.
Completely. Utterly.
The possibilities closed around his throat like a fist.
He staggered down one corridor, the guards’ absence buzzing behind him. No one giving him orders. No one hunting for him. No expectations. Well, he supposed Steve was keeping his word on that front. He only wished it felt more . . . right.
As he turned the corridor, he found himself in some other part of the medical center. Doctors bustled from room to room as self-steering patients on stretchers followed behind. He hung back, not wanting to get in the way, but an assistant approached him with a politely blank smile on her face. “Can I help you find something?”
Bucky swallowed; his mouth was too dry to respond. “I was just . . . looking around, and I . . .”
The assistant leaned toward him. “You’re one of his highness’s guests, yes?” Her smile sharpened. “They’re meeting two floors down in the east wing. I’m sure they won’t mind you’re a little bit late.”
Meeting—that sounded like Steve, all right. Rounding up the troops and figuring out his next attack. Bucky shook his head; his chest felt impossibly tight at the thought of it. “Actually, is there somewhere I can get some fresh air?” He’d been breathing recycled air for—well, for months, now. Maybe if he could just step away, just have a moment to think—
“Of course.” She gestured to a set of glass automatic doors. “That way and to the right.”
Bucky thanked her and followed the path, his mind chattering all the while.
He stepped out onto a porch several stories up that faced a wide square. They weren’t in some remote facility, then—they were in the heart of Wakanda, and the magnificent buildings crowding around the square glittered like crystals in the morning sun. Bucky drew a deep breath and savored the brush of sunshine across his skin; the breeze whispering through his hair. The city hummed with power, with progress, but none of it gnawed at him with the urgency he’d felt most of his life, with the need to fall into line, to obey, to submit.
It was so—clean. A safe enclave away from the world. Maybe it was foolish to even consider leaving it. Surely there was some sort of work he could do for King T’Challa. Low-level security work, maybe, or sweeping floors in one of the labs—he’d survived as a janitor in Vienna for a few weeks, before slipping off to Bucharest—then once he had a grasp on his life, some new sense of purpose, some new cause to fling himself into—
He sagged against the railing. That was the problem. He’d never been content to carry on. Whether it was encouraging Steve and making sure he succeeded as they both found their place in the world, or surviving basic training, or carrying out missions for the 107th or obeying his handlers’ commands—he’d always been an arrow in search of a target. Loyal, yes, like Zola had taunted him for being. But also determined. He needed a leader to follow and their conviction to be the air in his lungs.
And for far too long, it had been Steve.
“What do you think, Buck?” Steve held up his sketchpad from the other end of the fire escape. “You think it’s good enough for that job at the ad agency?”
Bucky stared at his own face on the paper, though unlike any mirror had ever shown him. His eyes cast downward, his mouth caught somewhere between a smile and a frown. The shadows under his eyes—god, it was like Steve had put his very thoughts on the paper. Like he knew just what was inside his head.
“I dunno. You better try again, just to be sure.” Bucky donned his signature grin and leaned back against the railing, arm propped behind his head. “Want me to strike a pose? They’ll probably start you off drawin’ cheesecake for the stag mags, after all.”
Steve’s eyes rounded with horror as Bucky spun around and lay on his back with his legs crossed and propped up against the railing like one of the girlie drawings. “That’s—that’s not—”
“Well, you gotta get better somehow, right?” Bucky winked and propped one finger against his mouth, coquettish. “I got no talent of my own. But I’ll be damned if I don’t help you find yours.”
He headed back inside after a few more silent moments. It wasn’t a promise, he told himself, as he made his way down two floors. Only an option.
He wished it felt like more.
*
The guards gave him only the briefest of glances before unsealing the conference room and ushering him inside. Steve stood at the front of the room, face partially obscured by a projected viewscreen that displayed a map of some kind. “And . . . and even if we were able to neutralize the security network . . .”
Bucky slipped through the shadows at the back of the room and found an empty chair against the wall. Steve’s eyes tracked his movement as he paused his strategizing. Sam swiveled his chair around to give Bucky a cursory nod, and Wanda curled her fingers in a tiny wave, but none of the others glanced back.
And there were others. Clint Barton, and a Wakandan interpreter at his side, signing Steve’s words. Scott Lang, chewing on the end of a pen. King T’Challa, looking just as at ease in an embroidered tunic and slacks as he’d looked in his oil-stained clothes back in his workshop. And another white man Bucky didn’t recognize, tall and willowy, with needlessly complicated hair and—was that a cape?
Sam leaned forward to manipulate the viewscreen and zoomed in on a portion of the map. “I’m telling you, man, I still think it’s a decoy. A distraction to keep us from the real power source.”
Steve pointed a finger at Sam, grinning. “Funny you should say that.” He exited the screen to a main menu and cycled through a handful of messages. “Natasha sent this over a few hours ago.” A video popped up, showing Natasha’s face. “If we want to trust anything in it . . . but sometimes lies tell you just as much as the truth.”
That had certainly been the truth around Natasha. Bucky drew his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arm around them.
“Hey, Steve. I’m assuming if you’ve gotten this that you made it to Wakanda safe and sound,” Natasha said on the video. “Don’t forget to tell the person the thing I told you to tell them. You did pinky-swear.”
Steve coughed abruptly as Bucky raised one eyebrow.
“We’re headed out on another assignment—more drama in New York, something with the Osborn Corporation? I’m sure you’ll catch it on the news, with all the endless photo ops the UN likes.” She rolled her eyes. “But Stark said that, just in case I had some way to contact you, which he certainly hoped I didn’t—” she smiled wryly—“that I should give you this message.” She leaned forward to punch unseen keys. “Take care of yourself, all right? All of you.”
For a moment, it felt like she was looking straight at Bucky. He glanced down for a moment and took a deep breath. This wasn’t his fight, he told himself over and over. He was just an observer. No Hydra puppetmaster tugging his strings; no commander barking out orders.
Tony Stark’s face filled the screen. Bucky shrank back with a wince.
“You’re sure this is . . . ? Okay.” Tony narrowed his eyes and stared straight ahead. “Listen up, Barnes and Noble.”
Sam and Scott stifled laughs.
“I don’t know what you two and your little island of misfit toys are up to, and frankly, I don’t care. I’m living my best life over here. Hashtag-blessed. In fact, you want a hashtag-fight, ‘winter’s heart’? How about hashtag-Operation World Peace. Mission accomplished on that front, no thanks to—”
“Tony . . .” Natasha’s voice warned from off-screen.
Tony rolled his shoulders back and jerked his chin high. “Anyway. If I were feeling generous, then I might tell you that those signals you’ve been chasing? Totally spoofed.” Tony paused to smirk for a moment. “Oh, what’s that, Captain High Horse? Why yes, I do know all about those signals. I’ve just got bigger fish to fry. And, you know, billions of dollars of high-tech equipment, most of which I built myself, and this little thing called a UN mandate—”
“Tony,” Natasha said, more insistently.
He exhaled, nostrils flaring. “Point is, if you’re looking for what I think you’re looking for, you’re gonna want these coordinates instead.” A grid of numbers flashed on the screen. “And you’re going to need the processing power for decoding quantum crypto keys as well as a multi-spectral broadcast array if you want to return the signal. Yes, I have all of those things. No, you can’t borrow them.”
Steve drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.
“I’ll give you three days to track it down, deal with whatever hostiles are guarding it—and there will be hostiles—and send out your response. But after that, it is my moral and legal obligation to report it to the task force. You know. Like a good American.” He fired off a mock-salute. “Stark, out.”
The video blinked out of existence. Clint flicked a wad of paper straight through the space Stark’s face had occupied moments before; Scott folded his arms and leaned back in his conference chair. “Did I mention I really hate that guy?”
Sam tinkered with another screen in front of him, then tossed the data upward so it hovered over the conference table. “Coords check out, though.” He zoomed out. “Looks like an old warehouse on the Black Sea. Shipbuilding site or something, probably from the Soviet era. No emissions like what we’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean much these days.”
“Can you cough up the equipment Stark was talking about?” the caped guy asked.
“We have done little research into quantum cryptography,” T’Challa said. “We prefer something more elegant for our own communications systems. I could construct such a device, but it might take longer than Stark has given us. If he does not mean to lead us into another trap.”
Wanda shook her head. “No. Stark is arrogant. But he is not needlessly cruel.” She pressed her lips together and glanced back at Bucky. “At least, not when he is thinking clearly.”
Bucky swallowed and sat up straight. “I know where to get that gear.”
All heads turned toward him.
Bucky’s teeth were chattering, he realized, as he scanned the faces looking at him. Sam and Wanda, practically straining themselves to look that therapist’s blend of encouraging and patient. Clint and T’Challa, looking more amused than anything. And the stranger and Scott, arms folded and withdrawn.
He settled on Steve, practically beaming, though he tried to contain it, and locked eyes with him.
“Hydra had a considerable storage depot near there, inside the Hoia-Baciu Forest on the Romanian side,” Bucky said. “They made up some stories about aliens and ghosts haunting the forest to keep the locals away. I used it in the ‘80s, when I needed to break into a CIA black site and . . .”
He trailed off as another face surfaced before him. Another restless dead. Hydra might be out of his head, but the memories weren’t. Probably never would. But wasn’t that for the best? To keep every part of himself, every painful memory and failed chance, keep them all together in his mind. Wasn’t it better than trying to cut them out like a tumor? He was the soldier, and the soldier was him.
He could be both. He could be whole.
Bucky cleared his throat. “Anyway, the stuff you need is there.”
“But that was, like, thirty years ago,” Sam said. “There’s no guarantee it’s still there.”
“They probably emptied it out the minute shit hit the fan with SHIELD,” Clint said.
“No, it’s there.” Bucky shrugged. “At least, it was last time I checked it. Two weeks before you crashed my place in Bucharest.”
Steve’s smile crinkled his eyes, and it felt like a shard of glass in Bucky’s heart. “Then congratulations, team. We might actually stand a chance.”
The caped man fiddled with his necklace; Bucky caught sight of the glowing green gem embedded in its design. The time gem Sam and Steve had told him about. Infinite timelines spiraling. Timelines where he never fell from the train. Where he’d never been captured by Hydra in the first place. Somewhere, a world where the war had never happened.
Where he and Steve lived out their lives in Brooklyn. Small lives. Unheroic lives. But a life lived together.
A target to aim for—wasn’t that what he sought? Maybe it was possible in this life, still.
The caped man tilted his head and closed his hand more tightly around the necklace. As if he’d known what Bucky was thinking. Hell, maybe he did. “But are you coming with us, Mister Barnes?”
Bucky shrank back in the chair. “I don’t know.”
*
“—And we’re coming to you live from Osborn Tower, home of the Osborn Corporation, where there is quite a scene! As you can see, fire and rescue are having a hard time getting into the quarantine zone due to all the gaseous vapors and—the swarm of . . . sand? Thankfully, we have the Avengers on site, joined by New York’s new favorite superhero, calling himself Spider-man—”
Bucky muted the vidscreen. The news broadcast cycled through numerous superbly-positioned camera angles that covered Iron Man and Spider-man’s ascent of the skyscraper to battle whatever new threat they were facing now. He was relieved Steve was working without the world watching. Much safer that way. But then, Steve had never done it for the renown.
Hell, the only person Steve had ever looked to, after doing something spectacular, had been Bucky.
He shut the vidscreen off completely. They’d lifted all the restrictions on his access, but he didn’t care—it was all noise anyway. His suite’s windows turned transparent again, revealing the velvet dark of nightfall over the mountains beyond. If Steve’s team were going to reach their relay station before Stark notified the UN, they’d have to leave tomorrow. And then, depending on the response they received, it’d be off to the next crisis. And the one that that one spawned.
An endless war, because it wasn’t really a war—it was just life, the life Steve had chosen, the one he could have only dreamed of back on that fire escape. He had the power and the strength and the support now to do what he couldn’t do then: fight and protect and avenge. It could never be solved in a single battle, a single war.
The life Steve had chosen. There was no going home when the war was done. It was his home.
And he’d asked Bucky to share it with him.
Oh.
Oh.
Not delaying the inevitable return to home. No picket fence home in the ’burbs for Steve Rogers. Just life itself.
The realization pressed down on Bucky with the same force as a memory. He was asking Bucky to be his partner in this life, and to make it his life instead of just his reflex. Sure, he’d asked the same of Sam and Wanda and Clint and all the rest, but maybe—maybe that was enough. This wasn’t like the Howling Commandos, where each arm of Hydra they chopped off for good brought them closer to their final farewell. This was—purpose. Not a target to be struck, but the course the arrow followed.
But he still needed answers.
Bucky tugged the Velcro straps closed on his sneakers and left the suite.
*
Steve answered the door to his suite with a toothbrush in his mouth. He held up one finger and beckoned Bucky inside, then disappeared to the bathroom to rinse. Bucky stepped into the foyer and glanced around, taking in the far more richly appointed suite Steve had been given. Deep black wood rafters, furnishings wrapped in bright Wakandan textiles, oversized paintings on the walls, and a hypermodern control panel for anything Steve could possibly need. Bucky hunched his shoulders, feeling painfully out of place. Steve was the hero, the savior, the captain. Bucky was only his shadow.
“Thanks for all your help today,” Steve said, as he strode back into the main room. He wore a white t-shirt and sweatpants, both of which clung stubbornly to his muscles. “We might actually have a chance at beating Stark to this thing.”
Bucky studied him—the strong slope of his shoulders, the faint smile tickling his lips, the pale blush of color on his cheeks and the tightness around his eyes. He’d gotten good, so good, at holding his emotions back. Never let your soldiers see you bleed, he’d once said. But Bucky recognized the same tension crackling in Steve that burned in him. The uncertainty eating away at him like acid.
“Why did you do it?” Bucky whispered. “Why did you read the codewords?”
Steve’s hands fell to his sides. “Because I had to be sure.”
Bucky clenched his jaw. “You don’t trust Sam and Wanda to do their jobs? You don’t trust me to see it through?”
“It’s not about trust. I had to be sure, Buck.”
Bucky tipped his chin down, staring up at Steve.
“The things you were saying . . . that you loved me, that you’d kill for me—”
Bucky realized he’d curled his hand into a fist; he forced his fingers apart. “I meant them, if that’s what you’re asking. And I—I still do.”
“No. It isn’t just that.”
Steve turned from him and strode toward the bank of windows that lined the far wall of his suite. Bucky felt himself straining forward, eager to follow, but stayed still. Watched the corded muscles of Steve’s shoulders shift and strain as he leaned against the glass.
“Stephen Strange’s gem—it showed me things.” Steve cast his gaze down. “Other times. Other things that could have been.”
The life we could have had together? He wanted to ask it so badly it was a sharp pain in his side.
“In—in some of those worlds, Hydra used you against me,” Steve said.
Bucky managed a feeble smile. “Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but they did that in this world.”
“No. Not in the same way.” Steve drew a slow breath, then turned back to face him, back propped against the glass. “They knew that I loved you. And they used you to exploit that.”
Steve’s words rang through him. Crowded around him, angry and haunting as any of his ghosts. “What are you saying?” Bucky asked, though his voice barely reached his own ears.
“So I had to be sure. That it wasn’t just another of Hydra’s tricks.” His voice hitched, turning watery. “I had to be sure it was really you. That you’d stay you.”
Bucky moved toward him, the world silent as a held breath. His thumb trailed against Steve’s lower lashes, brushing away the tear gathering there. His cheek was so warm and soft—everything Bucky imagined it would be and more. He fought down the million things he wanted to say and stilled his trembling lips.
“It’s me, Steve.” The soldier. The friend. The boy from Brooklyn. The man who loved Steve Rogers. “It’s me.”
Steve settled one hand on Bucky’s hip and smiled. It warmed him like daybreak, full of gold and promise. “I know. Because I love you, too.” Steve swallowed. “And always have.”
His mouth crushed against Steve’s, warm and clean and perfect. Steve’s fingers dug into his hip as he pulled Bucky against him and returned the kiss. Starlight spun behind Bucky’s eyelids as he curled his fingers in Steve’s hair, cradled the back of his head. Their lips parted and moved as one. Everything crumbled away until the only thing Bucky could taste, feel, think was Steve’s lips against his and the fire inside him finally burning free.
Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve’s as he gasped for air. Steve’s lashes fluttered against his nose, and he laughed. “That,” he said breathlessly, “is something I’ve been meaning to do for about eighty years.”
“I guess we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, then.” Steve cupped his face and kissed him again. Slow but hungry—lips venturing down Bucky’s jaw, down his throat, carefully skirting around the angry knots of scar tissue where his flesh joined with metal. Bucky shivered and tightened his grip on Steve’s hair.
“When you—said you’d figured yourself out—” He suppressed another shudder as Steve slipped his hand beneath the hem of his undershirt. “Is this what you meant?”
Steve paused and stood up straight, meeting Bucky’s gaze. “That I’m bisexual?” he asked, with a frankness that made Bucky blush. “Yes.”
Bucky let his fingers trail down Steve’s chest.
“I’ve loved you since we were teens, Buck. It doesn’t take anything away from what I had with Peggy, but—I’ve loved you, and I’ve never stopped. Not when I thought you’d died. Not when I woke up in another lifetime. Not when I saw what they’d done to you—especially not then. And the moment I believed there was a chance, even a chance, that you could be free . . .”
Bucky silenced him with another kiss, pressing him back into the glass. Steve groaned at Bucky’s weight leaning into him, but the sound turned to a laugh as Bucky tugged his shirt up and spread his fingers across the firm ridges of Steve’s stomach. Steve tilted his head back, exposing his perfect neck, and Bucky bit into it like it was the sweetest fruit.
“Come here.” In an instant, Steve had scooped Bucky into his arms, one hand under his knees and the other around his shoulder, and carried him to the bed. “Sam told me to take it easy on you, after all.”
Bucky let himself be nestled into the too-soft mattress. Steve tore his own shirt off overhead and curled around Bucky, at once both hungry and protective. “What exactly did you tell Sam?” Bucky asked—then sucked his breath through his teeth as Steve kissed his stomach.
“Oh, nothing.” Steve glanced up at him through his lashes, grinning wickedly. “He was just warning me as a precautionary measure.”
“Cautious? That doesn’t sound like the Steve Rogers I know.” The Steve Rogers I love. Bucky’s back arched, pressing him against Steve, stoking his hunger anew.
“You’re right. It doesn’t.”
Bucky stared at him. Overwhelmed. Hungry and in love and free and disbelieving all at once. Just one day ago, he’d been reliving the worst of his memories, digging the final bit of Hydra’s shrapnel out of his mind, and now his deepest secret wish was coming true. Steve must have sensed some of this; he came up on his hands and knees and crawled forward, crouching over him, then brushed a strand of dark hair back from Bucky’s face.
“But we can take it slow.” Steve kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips. “We have all the time in the world.”
Bucky pulled him down for another kiss, and this time, didn’t let go. He was never letting go.
*
Bucky woke up with his arm curled around Steve, his chest to Steve’s back, chin nestled in the crook of his neck. He feathered a kiss against Steve’s jaw until he heard his soft laugh, and Steve turned slowly to face him, nose to nose.
“How’d you sleep? I know they—they weaned you off the medication.”
Bucky blinked, trying to remember his dreams. He wasn’t sure he’d had any. “Actually, I slept great.”
“Good.”
Steve’s eyes lidded. The early morning painted him with a gilded, angelic haze that tugged at Bucky’s heart. But not with yearning—with relief, easing him open and letting him breathe. He traced Steve’s temple and jaw with his fingertip, learning their lines anew.
“Listen . . .” Steve curled in toward him. “I know this doesn’t necessarily change anything. Your—your choice is still yours to make.” He opened his eyes again, searching Bucky’s. “I want you to do what’s going to make you happy.”
“What makes me happy?” Bucky sighed. You. “I can’t remember a time in my life when I was happier than when I was protecting your sorry ass.”
Steve arched one eyebrow. “Sorry?”
Bucky trailed his hand down Steve’s spine and gripped his bare ass. “Fine, you’re right. Your formidable derriere. Grade-A all-American beef.”
Steve laughed and pulled him closer. “I’m being serious, Buck. I want you to be happy. No matter what.”
“I’m serious. I’m happiest when I’m with you.” Bucky swallowed. “I thought maybe living my life and being free meant finding myself, my true calling, some shit like that. But the truth is . . . I already found it.”
Steve watched him, eyes soft and deep as the sky.
“I found it when we were kids and you couldn’t stop getting into scraps. When you refused to back down from what was right. When you never, ever gave up. Even when you really should have.” Bucky pressed his lips together. “When you didn’t give up on me.”
“It’s what I do,” Steve said softly. “I don’t know any other way to be.”
“I know you don’t. And I love you for it. I want to do everything I can to help you with it. To protect you. To fight at your side.”
Steve let out a breath he’d been holding; the warm air gusted against Bucky’s chest, and he pressed another kiss to Steve’s cheek.
“You gave up your shield for me,” Bucky said.
Steve glanced down, silent.
“Let me be your shield now.”
Tears brimmed in Steve’s eyes once more. “I can’t lose you again.”
“The thing is, you don’t have to. It doesn’t have to be a choice anymore.” The smile blossomed in Bucky’s chest, all through his body. “Keep fighting your wars. I’ll be there with you.”
Steve laughed faintly. “Till the end of the—”
“Oh, shut up.” Bucky rolled on top of him, and silenced him with another kiss.
*
“Yo! Barnes and Noble!” Sam’s voice crackled over Steve’s comm on the night stand. “Get some fucking clothes on. If we’re going to move on this thing, it needs to be soon.”
Steve groaned and flicked the comm on. “That isn’t going away anytime soon, is it?”
“Not as long as I have to hear your shit about my bird costume,” Sam said. “Bucky, T’Challa says to come to his workshop now if you’re still interested.”
Bucky glanced at his shoulder and the deactivated stub of metal. “I was kinda getting used to it, actually.” He smiled at Steve. “But I guess I’m not quite as good at deflecting bullets without it.”
“I dunno. I can see the advantage.” Steve finished pulling his sweats on, then turned back to the bed and leaned over Bucky. With one hand, he pinned Bucky’s wrist down and use his other to shove Bucky down onto the mattress. “Makes it easier for me to get away with this.”
“You know you’re still broadcasting,” Sam said sourly.
“Oh, sorry, I’m just an old grandpa and don’t know how technology works.” Steve flicked the comm off and traced his hand down the side of Bucky’s face. “Seriously, though. It’s your choice.”
Bucky sat up. His arm had been a symbol of everything Hydra made him—a weapon, cold and programmed only for one purpose. But he’d found a way to make it more. Make it his own. He could do it again. For Steve, and for himself.
“I’ll do it,” Bucky said.
*
“I think you’ll find the neural arrays to be virtually identical to your old prosthetic,” T’Challa said, as he fine-tuned the plating. “But there are millions of them now instead of merely thousands. More responsive, more sensitive, and even more powerful, if you wish it.”
Bucky looked at the gleaming metal limb now attached to his body once more. An unwelcome image of Zola darted through his mind, his vile grin and his hateful words, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He’d survived. Hydra had given him their worst, their cruelest, and he’d survived.
“It may take you a few days to adjust to it fully, but by then it should be fully integrated on the old pathways. If you are still having difficulties, then return to me and I will see to it we get it right.”
Bucky frowned. “You aren’t coming with us?”
T’Challa leaned back on his work stool and popped his welding helmet up. “Unfortunately, an issue has come to my attention that only a king can settle. A thief has entered my country—a monster who has crossed Wakanda before.” T’Challa smiled, sharp and pointed. “I do not intend to let him do so again.”
“Anything we can do to help?” Bucky asked.
“No. This is my matter to resolve. Afterward, though, perhaps I can offer more assistance to the captain’s cause.”
“I hope so.” Bucky took a deep breath. “I—I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. Offering us safe harbor, and giving me—” He swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Well, giving me a chance. I want to repay you somehow. However I can.”
T’Challa stood and smiled down on him. “You can repay me by keeping the captain safe. And the rest of the world besides.” He picked up a slender screwdriver and slotted it behind one of the metal plates. “Are you ready, Barnes?”
Bucky took a deep breath and held it, letting it burn in his lungs. Carefully, he nodded.
T’Challa activated the arm.
Millions of electrical impulse shot through Bucky’s brain at once as the arm crackled to life. He exhaled all at once, momentarily blinded by hot white pain—but it was gone as soon as it had come. Instead, he felt the soft caress of air over his arm and the soft padding where he’d perched it; he heard the comforting whir of gears shifting and plates clicking together as he slowly curled a fist. As much as he’d hated the arm sometimes, it had become a comfort to him. A part of him as surely as the soldier was—not something he could deny.
He was stronger whole.
“Thank you,” he whispered, twisting his forearm from side to side. Shrugging his shoulder. Tapping each of his fingers against his thumb. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”
T’Challa nodded, smiling, as if he knew Bucky didn’t just mean the arm.
*
“We haven’t met yet. I’m Stephen.” The caped man tilted his head to one side as he regarded Bucky on the tarmac. “Though I sense that name is already taken in your heart.”
“I could call you Strange if you like.”
He laughed. “I suppose that works.”
The gem glinted from where it dangled around Strange’s throat. Steve said he’d seen it—the other times, the other lives they might have lived, or at least a fraction of them. Maybe Steve was right, and it was always the case that Hydra had gotten ahold of him, body and mind. Or maybe there was another life for them.
But it no longer called to Bucky. Whatever road had led him here, he had the sense he was exactly where he was meant to be.
Steve approached and gripped Bucky on his right shoulder. “Last chance to back out.” He glanced toward the quinjet, where Scott and Clint were already prepping for the flight sequence. Strange excused himself to help Wanda and Sam as they wrestled a case of supplies up the boarding ramp.
Bucky reached up with the metal arm and laced his fingers through Steve’s. “No way. I’ve been through way too much for you already, Steve.” He smiled. “You’re not getting rid of me again.”
Steve pulled the metal hand to his lips and kissed it gently. The nerve sensors tickled at the sensation, wonderful and new and alive. “Then let’s go save the world.”
“You go save the world,” Bucky said, “and I’ll save you.”
Steve winked and strode forward toward the ramp. “Just like old times.”
No, Bucky thought, following him onto the quinjet. Just like new ones.
He was ready to forge new memories. And as he strapped in next to Steve, surrounded by his friends, by these people who’d believed in him against all odds, who’d dug him out of his grave and refused to leave him behind, he knew he could do just that.
He was free. His own man at last.
And he chose Steve.
THE END