Chapter Text
Several weeks have gone by since Bucky found himself sitting on the floor in his bedroom, cradled in Steve’s strong arms until the early hours of the morning. The nightmare he’d had that night was the worst one Bucky can remember ever having, even before coming to Stark Tower. The thought of being ripped away from Steve again was almost too much to deal with. But thankfully, those are no more than thoughts. Steve is good to him. He gives Bucky all the space he needs, sits up with him on the nights when sleep won’t come. Being around Steve brings out more memories of who he used to be, someone who smiled easily, someone who used to laugh and joke. Steve tells him stories from when they were kids back in Brooklyn, and the memories start to piece together.
Bucky starts to notice himself feeling different every time Steve sits a little too close, or when he feels Steve’s eyes on him. It’s like a little jolt of electricity that runs through his whole body, making his skin tingle and a shiver run down his spine. It isn’t just when Steve is near, either. Times when he’s gone on an assignment, Bucky feels a dull ache in his chest, like he’s missing something crucial to his existence. But he does his best to ignore it, to bury it away just in case it’s something bad.
Eventually, he gets more comfortable with being around the rest of The Avengers. Steve introduces them in small groups. Of course, he already knew Tony, Natalia and Bruce. Thor stops by from time to time, and Bucky isn’t too sure about him. He’s nice enough, but the way he speaks initially throws Bucky for a loop. Clint is pretty alright, Bucky thinks, despite the fact he uses a bow and arrows. Sam is his favourite so far. He’s nice and one of the few people in the tower that doesn’t look at Bucky like he’s broken. Tony later introduces him to Pepper, a pretty redhead that Stark calls his girlfriend. She’s often present when Tony is doing repairs and upgrades to Bucky’s arm, helping Stark with things that he needs smaller, more delicate hands for. Pepper is sweet, and Bucky likes her a lot too. She tends to over do it when it comes to purchasing clothing and necessities for him, but he isn’t about to turn down a kindness like that, even if he can’t really get used to it. Not that he really has a choice. She usually just drops things off at their door for him, and doesn’t take no for an answer.
Bucky can never be around them all for too long. He hates crowds these days, feeling like one or all of them are going to suddenly attack him, it puts him on edge too much. But he does his best, for Steve.
He starts spending more time out of his room, even if it’s just sitting on the couch reading or watching television. And it’s in doing so he picks up on the tension that’s been brewing between Natalia and Steve. She tends to put more distance between them when they’re around other people, and Steve keeps trying to close it. Bucky knows that Steve never got around to dating before the War, he wasn’t exactly the specimen that he is now back then. Dames often over looked Steve for Bucky, and it had always irked him. How could they not see the great guy they were passing up, just to spend one night — even just a few hours — with the legendary Bucky Barnes? Steve used to give him hell about sleeping with so many girls back then, but Bucky just used to brush it off. That much of his past he can remember clear as day.
The irony in Natalia now paying all her attention to Steve, while completely overlooking Bucky was not lost on him.
But now, Natalia always seems distracted while Steve looks at her like she hangs the moon. Something in Bucky’s chest always tightens when he sees that lovestruck look on Steve’s face when he thinks no one is looking. Bucky doesn’t understand really, why he gets so agitated with it, but yet he still does. He often hears them late in the night, doing what they appear to do best; sex. She’s louder than Bucky remembered from back when they’d had that brief whatever they had, back before The Masters had thrown him back on ice. Steve isn’t overly vocal, which Bucky is thankful for, but the walls of the apartment are shockingly thin, and Bucky can still pick up the soft moans and sighs that escape his friend.
Most nights, Bucky is able to turn himself over on his bed and bury his head in a stack of pillows to drown out the noise. Most nights, he can ignore the tightness in his throat and the weight pressing down on his chest.
Sam is adamant that he develop a healthy fitness routine, because it was likely going to help him focus better, which could help with the holes in his memories. Bucky isn’t about to disagree, knowing that he’s gone too long without conditioning. Even with whatever bastardized super-soldier serum than runs through his veins, Bucky still feels the need to do something to keep himself in shape. So he allows Sam and Steve to create a weekly routine for Bucky to follow. He’s thankful for it, and the way that they seem to know how he thrives better with a set routine than when left on his own. Routine was something he’d grown used to with Hydra and The Masters controlling him, so to function without one was difficult. He felt too free.
Every morning after Sam and Steve get back from their run around the city, the two drag Bucky down to the gym. He’s still not overly comfortable with leaving the tower without due cause. Despite knowing that Hydra are gone, and Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D were holding off on hunting him down for now, Bucky still didn’t like the thought of being thrust into the public like that. He still doesn’t fully trust himself, especially not while he still has so many gaps in his mind he needs to fill. Certain things still trigger flashbacks too: The backfire of a car, the brush of someone’s shoulder against his in the street. It’s a completely different world than the one he knew, and that fact alone still scares him. Anyone could be out to get him. From the kind looking young man who serves him and Steve at Starbucks sometimes, to the stern businesswomen who pass by in the streets with cellphones plastered to their ears. Anybody could be a rogue agent from Hydra, just waiting to drag him kicking and screaming back to an underground cell. So they keep it inside.
It’s not much past six-am when Sam raps on his door, hollering at him that it’s time to go. Little did Sam know, Bucky hadn’t slept that night for the third in a row. So he takes his time getting dressed and leaves the room to follow the other man down to the gym. He changes in the locker room; a borrowed pair of sweats from Steve that are only slightly too big, a black tank that fits close to his frame and leaves his metal arm completely exposed, and a new pair of sneakers. He’d found them sitting on his bed several days before, a tag attached to the box with ‘Welcome back, Sargent!’ written on it in the curly handwriting he’s come to learn belongs to Pepper.Sam starts him on the treadmill this morning, setting his pace a leisurely jog. “Talk to me, soldier.” Sam says, leaning on the treadmills control panel. “I see that distracted look.”
“Just feeling off.” Bucky says, nodding towards to controls, telling Sam to crank the pace up.
“Off, how?” Sam asks, doing as Bucky asks, pushing the pace to a light run. Sam knows how to talk to someone who’s been through hell and back, Bucky thinks. He’s never patronizing, never pushes too hard. He just throws out feelers and whatever Bucky feels like sharing, Sam listens to and does his best to give advice on.
Bucky shrugs, moving his feet faster to keep up with the track under him. “Dunno how to explain it.” Bucky replies. “Heard Natalia and Steve arguing again the other night. Kinda pissed me off.”
Sam nods. “Pissed you off in what way?”
“I don’t like it when they argue.” He replies. “Makes me uneasy.”
Sam shrugs. “I can see that. Seeing friends fighting is never easy. Especially if you get caught in the middle of it.” He pushes the incline of the treadmill up, making Bucky have to work harder to keep his pace up. “Has anything new come back to you lately? Haven’t seen you moving your files around much.”
Bucky shakes his head, and feels a small bead of sweat run down his neck. “Nothing really. Bits and pieces as always.” He runs his right hand through his hair to push it off his face as he keeps running. “Just wish I could get it back quicker. I see the way Steve looks at me sometimes when he brings up something that I should remember and don’t. That pisses me off too.”
“Try talking to Banner about it later when you go in to see him.” Sam offers. “He might have some kind of idea on what you can do to help your memory along.” He cranks the speed of the track up a little more, making Bucky huff with the exertion.
The rest of the hour and a half session with Sam consists of weight training, some more cardio, and a couple minutes of sparing with a punching bag. Bucky leaves the gym feeling as refreshed as he does worn out. He heads back to the apartment to shower and change before his scheduled meeting with Bruce. It’s as he’s heading for the bathroom that Steve exits, a pair of light jeans slung around his hips, no shirt, and a towel in his hand scrubbing at his neatly cropped blond hair. The first thing Bucky notices isn’t the way those jeans ride low enough to expose the way his entire abdomen is sculpted like a statue of a Greek god. It’s the tattoo that covers the entire left side of Steve’s chest. His eyes zone in on it, looking over the words, the picture, the entire subject.
He remembers seeing a peek of it the night he’d broken into Steve’s old place, but he’d never seen the full thing. He forgot it even existed. Bucky sees his own name etched into one of the dog tags, right over the place where Steve’s heart sits beneath his ribcage. And those damn words, the ones that had tormented him for weeks before finding Steve. I’m with you, ‘till the end of the line. Bucky can’t help but stare.
Steve stops in his tracks and Bucky can see him flush a little already. “If I’d known you were still alive, I never would have…” Steve starts, draping the towel in his hands around his neck, the ends of it hiding the tattoo from view.
“It’s…” Bucky starts, swallowing the lump in his throat. “It’s a nice tattoo.” He does his best to put on the smirk he’d used to use to when making a joke. “Never would have expected you to be the tattoo type.”
Steve laughs a little and shrugs. “Me neither.” He replies, before ducking into his room.
Bucky makes his way into the bathroom in a daze. Steve had cared enough about him all those years to ink Bucky’s name on his body permanently. The thought sends a pleasant chill through him as he turns the shower on and slides inside the glass enclosure.
Something else he had to get used to; stand-alone showers. The little glass boxes gave him an initial fright when moving into Stark Tower, and he’d had quite the panic attack. They reminded him a little too much of the cryostasis chambers that Hydra kept him in between missions. He only ever remembered bathtubs from back when he and Steve were kids, and after that, group shower rooms — like the ones in the gym — in Hydra’s facility. It had taken a few days before he convinced himself that this thing wasn’t what it looked like, that it was just a shower.
By the time he’s cleaned all the sweat from his skin and scrubbed his still too-long hair clean, Steve’s already left the apartment. Bucky knows that he’s getting ready for some new assignment across the country, and that he’ll be leaving for a few weeks. He hates it when Steve goes, but Bucky knows that there isn’t anything he can do about it. Steve is a hero, and he’s got to do what heroes do. He sighs and digs through the drawers of clothing that Pepper and Natalia have purchased for him. Bucky settles on a pair of soft, dark blue jeans that fit him perfectly, a dark navy blue t-shirt and a high-end, designer grey knit sweater made from a soft, warm wool. It fits around his body perfectly, and makes him look like he almost belongs in this decade. He ties his hair at the back of his neck in a low knot to keep the still damp strands off his face and pads through the apartment in bare feet to get something to eat.
“Better.” He replies, closing the book he’d been reading. He sits silently as Bruce goes over the usual tests. Blood pressure, reflexes, blood work. “Listen, Bruce. Is there anything you could maybe do to…” He hesitates. “Do to maybe help me remember?”
The doctor sits back and watches him carefully. “Is something wrong?” He asks.
“No.” Bucky replies, pulling the sleeve of his sweater back down over his right arm where Bruce had finished drawing a few blood samples. “I just can’t get anything back all at once. It’s still all fragmented.”
Bruce is silent for a minute as he considers his statement. “I have been thinking about it lately.” He admits. “And there are several avenues we could look into exploring.” Bucky look at him hopefully, waiting for Bruce to explain. “Well, there’s Electroshock therapy —“
“NO!” Bucky all but shouts. Just the mention of electroshock sends the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. Thats how Hydra had gotten him like this in the first place. He can feel the cold metal braces clamping around his arms and chest, taste the dirty bite plate that Rumlow had put between his teeth, feel the burning in his brain when the machine started up. “No no no…” He feels panicked for the first time in weeks, breathing faster and harder.
“I know, James. It’s all right. We aren’t going to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” Bruce is saying, placing a strong hand over Bucky’s right. Bucky takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut to try and rid the memories from his mind. “I know that Hydra used that technique on you, as well as my second option. We could have given you a drug that induces hallucinations, while leading your mind with stimuli to potentially help you relive old memories.” Bucky shakes his head, his jaw knotting together tightly as he looks at Bruce with scared eyes. “I read your file, and I know thats how they brainwashed you. It’s ok, James. Take a deep breath.”
Bucky does, inhaling deeply through his nose, breathing out through his mouth as a shiver runs through him. He feels himself calm down, relaxes a little more. Bruce nods slowly when Bucky swallows, silently telling him that it’s all ok, that he’s safe here. “So,” Bucky says after a few minutes. “Those are my only options, then? Other than just letting it all come back on its own?”
Bruce shakes his head. “No,” Bruce says lightly, shaking his head. “I do know a psychologist who specializes in hypnosis.”
Bucky can’t fight the snort that leaves him as Bruce says the word. “Hypnosis?” He laughs. “What’s that going to do? Make me strut around the room like a chicken? Because that’d REALLY do me good.”
The doctor purses his lips for a second and fixes him with a stare. “Actually, it’s been proven to help rape and attack victims recall details of their traumas that they’ve buried out of self preservation. I’m thinking that if done properly, it can help you dig up those missing pieces of your life.”
He mulls it over in his head for a minute. There was no machines or drugs involved. No sick experiments. Nothing he could think of that could be potentially harmful. “And you’re sure it’ll work?” He asks, his tone skeptical.
“Not entirely, no. But if we don’t try, we’ll never know.” Bruce says as he packs up his things. “So, is that something you’d be willing to try?”
Bucky shrugs. “Sure. I think it’s a total load of bullshit, but why the hell not?”
Bruce node then and hefts his bag onto his shoulder. “Great. I’ll get in touch with Dr. King and arrange a session.” He heads for the door and stops, before turning around. “Don’t worry, James. You’ll get it back.” He gives Bucky a warm smile before leaving the apartment to go about his other business.
He spends the rest of the day alone in the tower, sorting through the same stacks of files again. As always, nothing new comes back and the files stay in their respective piles. He sighs and flops down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He hates this restless feeling he gets when he’s alone sometimes, like he can’t sit still too long, like he has to be doing something all the time. Bucky can’t really remember the hobbies he used to have, aside from reading. And he’d done enough of that today already.
Steve mentioned he used to be a good artist back when they were kids, but Bucky doesn’t believe him. Steve is the artist here. He’s seen the pictures Steve painted of each of The Howling Commandos. They’d been hanging on the wall of Steve’s old apartment. Wait. Bucky thinks, sitting up, placing his feet on the floor. He closes his eyes and thinks back to that night. He can see the wall of portraits in his mind’s eye; each of the men that fought beside him and Steve are immortalized in acrylic paint on canvas, encased in expensive looking frames. All but his. Why hadn’t Steve painted his portrait?
Bucky frowns, feeling a little dejected and not knowing why.
He spots Steve’s sketch book sitting on the coffee table and reaches for it before he can stop himself. He knows he probably shouldn’t be going through Steve’ things without his permission, but hey, it was just sitting there in the open…
The first sketch he comes to is a familiar room, the kitchen of their old apartment, as seen from the shabby little couch in the living room. Threadbare looking curtains are hung over a small window, the sunlight is filtering in such a way that makes it look inviting. There’s a small, scuffed table and two worn chair under the window, the counter and kitchen sink behind the left chair, the fridge behind the right. A single coffee cup and ashtray sat on the table, just like there always used to be. Bucky smiles at that. This is something he remembers, the kitchen in the apartment that was probably too small for two grown men to be living in together. It had always felt like home. Bucky brushes his thumb over the coffee cup, knowing on instinct that it was supposed to be his coffee cup, and his ashtray.
He turns the page, and is met by a picture he’s probably not supposed to see. It’s of a woman. She’s lying on her side, hair falling over her bare shoulders. Her arm falls across her chest, and rumpled bed sheets drape over her curvaceous hips. It takes a minute before Bucky realizes that the face of the woman is Natalia’s. She looks beautiful, peaceful, her eyes are closed and she appears to have been sleeping. Bucky feels a little twinge of pain in his chest, and he turns the page once more.
This sketch is quite beautiful. A woman in jeans and cowboy boots, walking with her back to the viewer. She’s got a cowboy’s hat in one hand while the other is running through her hair, which falls over her naked back. Clouds of dust billow around her feet, and in the background is a mountain range and several cactus plants. Down the side of the page, Steve’s writing reads:
“Hello cowgirl in the sand.
Is this place at your command?
Can I stay for a little while?
Can I see your sweet, sweet smile?
Old enough now to change you name
When so many love you, is it the same?
It’s the woman in you that makes you wanna play this game” Bucky gets the feeling that this is a more recent one, reflecting the way Steve has been feeling towards Natalia.
He flips to the next page with a pout and is startled to be met with his own face. He looks like the perfect image of seduction, lower lip caught between slightly uneven teeth, eyes half lidded and dark. His shirt was hanging open, and the edge of his pants is riding low on his hips. His left hand — flesh and bone, not steel — is running through his short, neat hair, the way he’d kept it in the 30’s, before he’d gone off to war. Bucky feels his face get hot as he takes in the image his best friend has drawn of him. But not him, all at once. This was the person he’d been before, all blatant sex appeal and flirtatiousness. He swallows thickly and forces himself to turn the page again.
He spends the next hour looking through Steve’s drawings, amazed with his talent. Steve comes home later than usual that night, looking worn and exhausted. They don’t talk much through dinner, and Steve heads to bed as soon as he’s cleaned up the dishes. Bucky doesn’t sleep much that night, instead he paces the living room floor, wondering whats gotten into him.
It’s several days of the same routine of working out with Steve or Sam, then idly pacing the apartment, trying to piece his mind together before Bruce gets in contact with him, telling Bucky that he’s arranged a meeting with his psychologist friend, Dr. King. Bucky meets them in Bruce’s office in the tower the following morning at oh-nine-hundred sharp, feeling both nervous and skeptical all at the same time. Dr. King is a kind looking woman of maybe fifty, blonde hair tied back off her face in a neat bun at the back of her head. She has a kind smile and a soft voice that instantly makes Bucky feel safe and comfortable.
“James, I’m going to have Bruce or Sam sit in on your sessions with us, to ensure your safety. Is that alright with you?” She asks, as she sets up a small video camera beside her.
Bucky nods as he sits down on a comfortable couch. “Yeah, I guess so. Why not Steve? He’d be the best one to restrain me if things go a little…” He searches for the right word. “Haywire?”
Dr. King laughs. “As good an idea as it would be to have another super soldier in the room, his presence might lead your mind in a guided direction. It might actually conjure up the fake memories Hydra implanted in your mind when they gave you your last assignment. So I think it’s best if Steve stays out on this one.” The woman replies. “Now, I want you to lay back and relax. Close your eyes.” He does as she asks, kicking off his sneakers and getting comfortable on the couch, his eyes closing slowly. “Take a deep breath… Thats it. Good. Now another… In and out… Feel your body relax completely.” Her voice is low and soothing, and Bucky feels at ease as he takes long, slow breaths, his hands folded together on his chest. “Now start counting back from ten.”
“Ten… Nine… Eight” Bucky counts, with every exhaled breath.
“Open your mind… Explore your thoughts…” Dr. King’s voice says.
Behind Bucky’s eyes colours start to dance, swirling and twisting. “Seven… Six… Five” He counts sleepily. He doesn’t remember ever being so relaxed.
“Listen to my voice, James. Open yourself up. What do you see?”
The colours start to form objects, nothing he recognizes yet. “Four… Three… Two…” He says, as the shapes start to form more clearly. An alleyway back in old New York. “One.” He finishes, as the vision clears.
I’m back in Brooklyn. I’m eight years old, and running an errand for Ma. She sent me to the bodega on the corner to get… Something. Theres a group of kids in the alley behind the bodega, bigger than me, all circled around something. I can hear them laughing, but not all of them are laughing. There’s a smaller, sound, like a groan coming from the middle of their circle. I go over to see what’s happening and thats when I see him huddled on the ground, his lip’s bloody and his knees are skinned.
“Who is it?”
Steve. I get the bodega owner and he chases the older kids away and I pick Steve up off the ground. He calls me a jerk, and says he didn’t need my help. I call him a punk, because he damn well did need help. He’s so small, even for eight. He’s scrawny and all angles, like he’s never seen a proper meal in his life. I knew instantly that we were going to be best friends.
The colours swirl again, and the image changes. Bucky feels his lips quirk into a smile.
I’m seventeen. Steve’s Ma died not long ago, and I made Steve move in with me. Neither of us have anyone but each other. Apartment is shitty. Too small for the both of us,but it’s all we can afford. We share a room. He’s too small and frail still. He gets a job painting signs for the city when they need someone. I work at the docks, hauling crates on and off boats. Hard work, little money. We scrape by. But I’ve never been happier, and going home to that apartment every night is the best feeling I can remember.
As the memory fades out, and the images blur, Bucky feels a weight on his chest, like something is tugging at his heart. Without realizing it, he moves a hand, his flesh and bone one, to pull at his shirt just over his heart. He swallows and rubs at his chest a little, but the weight persists.
“You’re doing great James. What do you see now?” Dr. King’s voice is asking at the edge of his subconscious.
It’s the winter after we moved in. Our furnace is out for the third time that week, and we don’t have the money to fix it properly. Steve is getting sick. He gets sick every winter, bad lungs the doctors say. He has medicine for it that we keep filled when we have the money, but it ran out a week ago, and he’s having trouble breathing. Steve gets a fever that won’t break, and we have to call a doctor. Doc says that it’s real bad, and he doubts Steve’s going to make it through the winter. I stay home from work, because I don’t want to be gone in case something bad happens. I know I’m gonna lose my job, but I don’t care because this is Steve, and he’s my best friend. He can’t die on me. I don’t sleep for days, sitting beside the bed to keep an eye on him. His fever breaks nearly a week later, and his eyes open for the first time since. I don’t remember ever being so relieved.
The same pulling in his chest catches his attention and he paws at himself while still entranced in his hypnotized state. He groans a little, but Dr. King assures him that he’s fine, and pushes him back into his memories. Bucky watches the colours swirl behind his eyes again.
It’s 1942 and I had to enlist in the army. It’s the only way I can keep a roof over Steve’s head, keep him safe. Work is hard to find in the city. Army wages aren’t much, but it’ll be enough. Steve is not happy, and is adamant that he’s going over too. He tries every damn recruiting office, but he’s always rejected. Basic training is a breeze, I make Sergeant almost too quickly. My orders come in the mail and I have to go. Steve is upset, but he keeps it together. I do too, until I’m on the boat that’s going to take me overseas to war. I huddle in my bunk that first night, covers pulled over my face, and I’m crying. Why am I crying? I’m not scared of war. It’s my duty. So why does it hurt?
The pull in his chest grows stronger and starts to ache. Something is wrong, he doesn’t feel right. He feels hollow, empty. The snap of Dr. King’s fingers brings him from the hypnosis, and Bucky’s eyes flutter open. The clock that sits over the door reads quarter-to-four in the afternoon. Bucky sits up from the couch and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his right hand, then drags it through his hair. His cheeks are damp, and his eyes feel sticky. He blinks several times to clear his vision, and looks up at Bruce and Dr. King, who are both looking at him with sad smiles. "I didn't think I'd be out that long." He comments, to no one in particular.
Bruce shrugs. "You were quiet for a long time before you finally started to come to things. Even with Dr. King and I trying to lead you." He explains
“How’d I do though?” He asks them.
“Excellent James. Really, really great.” Dr. King is saying, as she pops the disc out of the camera. She labels it with a marker as ‘Session 1’ and passes it to him in a clear case. “Just in case you feel like watching the session.” She explains.
Bucky already knows what he remembered, but he takes the disc anyway. “So what now? All that came back was shit from the 30’s and 40’s. That’s not really helping me now, is it?” He asks.
Bruce shakes his head. “It is. It’s filling in the early gaps. The more from the past you recall, the more that things that happened later become clear. You can start to understand motives that drove you to do things, why your thought processes lead you places.” He explains. “But for now, go and get some rest. We’ll meet here next week for your next session.”
He nods slowly, still feeling that same heaviness in his chest. He gets to his feet, and shakes hands with Dr. King before leaving Bruce’s office for his and Steve’s floor. The elevator doors haven’t even opened when he can hear Steve and Natalia bickering through the steel. He can’t make out the words, but their voices are raised, and both seem displeased. As he enters the room, they immediately clam up and simultaneously look over at him. He gives them both a half-assed smile and heads into his room to deposit the disc on his dresser.
Steve has dinner cooked that evening. It’s one more thing Bucky has come to enjoy about living with Steve. The man is a brilliant chef. The steak set in front of him is cooked to perfection; still rather red in the centre, slightly bloody, the way he liked it. Potatoes mashed with butter and garlic and green onions, grilled asparagus and roasted carrots join the meat, and Bucky feels like a king. Natalia pushes her food around her plate, and Steve eyes her quietly as he eats.
“How was your meeting with Bruce?” Steve asks him after what feels like an hour of silence.
Bucky shrugs. “Fine.” He replies, taking another bite. “Remembered the day we met. And that fucking shitty apartment we lived in.” He tells Steve.
A smile ghosts across Steve’s lips, and Bucky’s heart feels like its going to burst for some reason. “Yeah, it wasn’t the best. But we survived.” He chuckles before he gets up from the table to clear the dishes.
He leaves Steve and Natalia in peace, and retires to his own room for the night. He doesn’t sleep, he can’t. His mind is racing at a thousand miles an hour. Why had his heart hurt so much while he was under the hypnosis? Was that normal? And why did he still feel it now? Why did he get this flutter in his chest when Steve smiled at him like that? He lays on his back on his bed, clothed in nothing but pyjama pants, staring at the ceiling once more as he tries to figure it all out.
The clock beside his bed is going for half-past-midnight when he hears the tell-tale signs of Steve and Natalia making up for their fighting earlier. Murmured words are lost through the wall, but he can hear the way she moans and sighs Steve’s name, the way Steve talks to her in a low, smooth voice. Bucky turns onto his side and covers his head with his pillow. He doesn’t want to hear this. But things on the other side of the wall are getting heated, and Natalia isn’t exactly quiet about it. Bucky feels the way his heart contracts in his chest, and he curls into a ball, trying to distract himself from listening to the way Steve’s strangled voice groans out as he finishes.
Bucky stays silent for a while, head still buried under his pillow. He still can’t sleep. His throat feels tight and dry, he needs water. Outside his door, he hears the soft steps he’s come to associate with Natalia slipping from the apartment, the slide of the heavy elevator doors, and then silence. He waits another minute or two before getting up. As he digs around his dresser for a shirt, he hears Steve pad down the hallway. Bucky quirks an eyebrow. Steve almost never gets up in the middle of the night like that. He tugs a plain white tee over his head and heads into the kitchen.
Steve looks a mess, sitting at the table in a pair of red plaid pyjama pants, his head in his hands. His hair is sticking up at all kinds of strange angles, and a series of red scratches run down his bare back from neck to tailbone. “Dame done a number on you, eh Stevie?” Bucky says, mimicking his old self from the fragmented memories he’s had, while reaching into a cabinet for a glass. He fills it with water and ice from the dispenser on the fridge that still boggles his mind, and leans against the counter.
“Could say that, yeah.” Steve replies, dragging his hand through his hair.
Bucky can read the set of Steve’s shoulders even back on. Something is weighing on him. “You okay?” Steve just shrugs. “You can talk to me, you know.” Bucky urges. “I know I have my own shit going on, but I’m still your friend.”
Steve sighs. “Ever been seeing a girl for a while, but still not know where you are?” He says, as Bucky sits down across the table from him. Bucky nods. Sure he has, then again, back when they were kids, it was usually his fault and the girls were the ones left wondering. Steve doesn’t meet his eyes, just picks at the edge of a placemat that sits on the table. “It’s been nearly a year, and I have no clue about what Natasha and I are. Is she my girlfriend? Are we — what did Tony call it the other day — Friends with benefits?” He huffs.
“Well, what do you want? Where do you see you guys in two years, say?” Bucky asks, trying to sound as wise and world wary as possible.
He watches as Steve’s expression changes from lost and forlorn to peaceful and almost happy. “Hypothetically,” Steve starts. “I’d like to settle down. You know me, Buck. I’ve never been the type to have a new girl every week. And Natasha’s great, you know? She understands the kind of work I do, because she’s in it too. I don’t have to try and explain why sometimes I have to get up on a moments notice to go and save the damn world. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not.”
Bucky sits down across the table from Steve, listening to every word he says. He feels something in his chest contract, and the same weight he felt in the hypnosis session presses down on him. But this time, it feels stronger, more prevalent. He winces, and Steve’s expression falters. Bucky waves his left hand, telling Steve to go on, rubbing at his chest with his right.
“Two years time? I’d like to be engaged. I’d like to be able to tell the whole world that Natasha Romanov, the infamous Black Widow, is going to be my wife.” He sighs, the corners of his mouth dropping again. “Realistically though, that’d never happen.”
“Have you even asked her where you are?” Bucky asks, trying to keep his tone neutral.
Steve shakes his head. “No. I don’t even know how I’d go about doing that.”
Bucky shrugs. “Just ask her.”
He watches Steve get up from his seat. “I guess you’re right.” Steve says, running a hand through his hair as he yawns. “I just can’t get used to sleeping alone.”
Bucky arches an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I guess you don’t remember back that far yet.” Steve says with a small, sad smile. “For as long as we lived in that apartment, we only had the one bed. I guess I got used to someone else’s presence on the other side of the mattress, even if it wasn’t… Well, not the same way as it is with Natasha. Then when we were overseas, there was at least ten of us in a room in the barracks at any given time. I never really spent much time alone until I woke up here.” He explains.
Bucky can see the set of his shoulders droop a little more, and feels that weight in his chest get just a little heavier. “But let me guess, she’s not too keen on the idea?”
Steve shakes his head. “Not really. It’s strange thought, she never really seemed to mind until recently.”
“Until I moved in.”
“Bucky, no. It’s not that.” Steve assures him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “I don’t know what it is, and that’s whats driving me crazy. I don’t know if it’s something I did, if maybe I came on a little too strong? She just keeps saying that she can’t sleep with someone else in her bed, that it makes her restless. Like I said, it never bothered her before, so I don’t know why it would now.” He huffs and shakes his head, before getting up from the table. “Anyway, try and get some sleep tonight, ok? I’m just down the hall if you need anything.” Steve gives him a warm smile before heading back down the hall to his room, only partially closing his door. Bucky knows it’s so Steve can keep a better ear out, just in case something happens and Bucky needs him.
It always amazes Bucky how selfless Steve can be. Even when he’s got his own personal issues going on, Steve still goes out of his way to make sure that he’s alright. He feels lucky that he has someone like that in his life now. For so long, no one really cared about anything other than his ability to kill. But now, someone actually gave a damn about how he felt, how he was doing. It was the first time in a long time that he was actually allowed to have feelings, was allowed to have an opinion on things. And if it hadn’t been for Steve, the one person who refused to give up on him, even when he spent day after day silent, he never would have gotten to the point he reached now. Bucky smiles a little, eyes watching Steve’s door in the darkened hallway.
He spends most of what remains of the night tossing and turning in his bed, and when that does nothing, he paces the floor of the hallway. He knows he keeps Steve awake when he does this, not hearing the soft snoring that usually comes from the open door, but he can’t help it. He’s too busy wondering why he keeps feeling so hollow.
As always, he meets with Sam in the gym the following morning when Steve returns home from their run. Sam puts him on the treadmill again, starting him off at the same leisurely jog. “How’s the hypnosis?” Sam asks, leaning against the handlebar on Bucky’s left side.
“Better than nothing.” Bucky replies.
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Nothing came back?”
Bucky shakes his head and pushes the button on the treadmills control panel that increases his speed. “Just stuff from before the war. Left me feeling weird though.” He says, eyes staring out the huge plate glass window that sits in front of the line of treadmills in Stark’s gym.
“Well, what were you thinking about?” Sam asks.
“How I met Steve, the apartment we used to live in. That one time Steve almost died because he got pneumonia, and the doctor said his lungs couldn’t handle it. Enlisting in the military. Leaving Steve behind.” Bucky tells him.
Sam nods slowly. “And what did this weird feeling feel like, exactly?” He asks.
Bucky thinks, trying to find a way to describe it. “Like someone was reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart in their fist.” He says after a minute. Sam pushes his pace up a little more, increases the incline on the treadmill. “And after, when I was back at the apartment talking to Steve about him and Natalia, I dunno. I got this hollow feeling. I don’t know what to make of it.”
He takes a glance at Sam, who’s not saying anything, just smirking. Theres a look in his eyes that tells Bucky he knows something that Bucky doesn’t. Bucky fixes him with a blank stare as he keeps running, and Sam just chuckles to himself. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll go away.”
Bucky hits the cool-down button and his pace begins to slow. “Doesn’t really help right now, does it?” He mutters, while the track under his feet slows to a stop. Sam passes him a bottle of water and leads him over to another area of the gym, where several punching bags hang. He pulls a pair of fingerless leather gloves from his pocket and pulls them on while Sam takes his place behind the bag, holding it still. “What bugs me here,” Bucky is saying as he starts throwing a few punches. “Is that I don’t remember what anything feels like. I don’t remember what happy really feel like. I don’t remember what sad feels like. All I know is empty and blank.” He jabs at the bag several more times, eyebrow furrowing. “It’s frustrating.”
Sam nods from behind the punching bag. “I understand. But don’t focus too much on the little things like that. When you figure it out, you’ll understand what’s going on in your head better. Me telling you what you feel isn’t going to do you any good.” Annoyed, Bucky throws a harder punch with his left, sending the bag back into Sam’s chest. The other man groans out an ‘oomph!’ as he catches the bag, and Bucky fixes him with a stare. “Sorry pops, but I ain’t tellin’ you shit! You gotta figure out some things for yourself!” He laughs. Bucky just groans and continues to take his frustration out on the punching bag.
The days blend one into the other. He doesn’t sleep much still, and his body does not thank him for it. But when he does, he’s out for hours out of pure exhaustion. Sometimes he’ll pass out on the couch, and come to in his bed, not knowing how he got there. He assumes that Steve somehow manages to get him up from the couch, unless he’s started sleepwalking. He spends some time with Clint and Natalia in the shooting range, under strict supervision, which he can understand. At first, he's confused as to why the archer would have any use for a shooting range, but soon realizes that Stark has a special area allocated just for Clint. It's got targets set up up high on rafters, and along the walls, each one padded to adsorb the arrows. Tony really thinks of everything, doesn't he? Bucky thinks as he looks around the massive range. He hasn’t lost his expert marksmanship in the months spent without a weapon in his hands, something he’s proud of. Bucky even manages to impress Clint with his ability. He chalks it up to the years spent as a sniper, always watching Steve’s six while they were in the field.
It's then, on the range with Clint and Natalia that be begins to notice things. Things he doesn't like. Clint is almost too close to Natalia sometimes, leaning into her, touching her in what could be considered an inappropriate way to touch someone who was just a friend. Did Clint not know that Natalia was seeing Steve? Was he not aware that Steve was head over heels for this woman? He watched the way Clint's hand would graze the small of her back as she walked past him, on her way to store her weapons. He saw the way Natalia looked at Clint, and it was not at all the distant look she often gave Steve. No, this was a very different look, and Bucky did not like it. Was she playing with Steve? What was her angle here? He huffs to himself, and keeps shooting at the targets that Jarvis puts up for him.
Steve takes him out from time to time, shows him around the city. He doesn’t much like being out in public still, but he gets more and more used to it each time they venture out. Bucky develops a taste for coffee, and he, Steve and Natalia often spend their afternoons at the Starbucks around the corner. A pretty girl that works there flirts shamelessly with Steve, and Bucky is always amused by that. “Look at me, I’m invisible!” He laughs one day, and the pretty girl passes Steve his coffee, her number scrawled on the bottom of the cup. “I’m you!”
Steve’s face tightens then, as they sit. Bucky watches as something in his eyes darkens over before he forces a smile. But it falters and fades again. “You could never be invisible, Buck.” Steve says softly, like he hardly meant to see it.
Seeing that pained look on Steve’s face sends his heart plummeting through his body and through the floor. Whatever he’d said had struck a sore nerve with Steve, and Bucky didn’t like it. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Bucky asks, trying to meet Steve’s eyes.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Steve feints a smile again and they drink their coffee in silence.
More often than not, when Steve is in a particularly bad mood — which happens more often than Bucky remembered, and he blames it on Natalia — Steve drags him down to the gym so they can spar hand to hand. Both of them are too strong to properly spar with the others, aside from Thor, who’s almost never around. Tony only plays along when he’s wearing his suit, which Bucky considers cheating. Tony says that Bucky’s arm could be considered a cheat too, but he shrugs it off. Steve is able to give Bucky a good working over most times they spar, which is almost refreshing.
The next session with Dr. King creeps up on him, and he finds him self in Bruce’s office the week after the first one took place. As he’d done the last time, Bucky lays back on the couch and gets comfortable, relaxes, counts back from ten, and finds himself deep within the confines of his own mind.
“Talk to me James. What do you see?” Says the soothing voice of Dr. King.
It’s cold. It’s always cold. I can’t stop shivering. My left side feels heavy, and I remember my arm. The Masters brief me on my next mission and ready me to leave. I kill so many people with one flip of a switch… Train station bombing. Back on ice after. Next time they need me it’s to assassinate someone who’s name I can’t remember now. Shot him from a third floor window across the street from the cafe he was going into. Back on ice again after. Sometimes I start to think things for myself, the Masters don’t like it.
The vision blurs for a second before coming clear, and Bucky starts to feel afraid. “Where are you now?” Dr. King asks gently.
A bedroom. Pretty girl still sprawled out on the bed, red hair across the pillow. She looks up at me with a soft look I haven’t seen in I don’t know how long. It’s Natalia. She smiles, asks where I’m going. She’s speaking Russian. I tell her I have to go before someone catches on. We’d both be killed if we were found out. But she’s so convincing. I don’t want to leave. I want to crawl back into her bed where it’s warm. I’m always so cold. But Natalia is warm all over, puts the heat back in my blood. She pulls me back to bed, her lips are on mine, her hands are all over me.
The memory fades away before Bucky can see too much else, but he gets the drift. He’d already figured that out a while ago, after he’d seen Natalia. Theres a pressure in his chest again, the same tug that he’s come to associate with Steve, only not nearly as powerful. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he feels guilty for not being able to protect her and Steve from the things they’d both had to face in life after Hydra had put him on ice.
“You’re doing great, James.” Dr. King tells him. “Can you tell me anything else? What else can you remember?
Hydra lab. Strapped down to the table while they fit the new arm in place. Blinding pain, no anaesthetic. I pass out. Mission from the next day is a failure. The Masters have me beaten, and I take it because I’m a failure. Wooden batons, heavy boots, fists, tazers. I feel it all. Bones are broken, blood everywhere. Oh god, it hurts so bad. Why won’t they stop? Then they drag me to the chair. My arms are clamped down, theres a device around my head. Someone puts something in my mouth, and… pain. So much pain. I can’t stop from screaming. It hurts. It hurts it hurts, oh fuck, it hurts. Then everything is blank.
He wakes with a start, gasping for breath at the snap of the Doctor’s fingers. Bruce is kneeling behind the arm of the couch, where Bucky’s head rests. Bucky is coated in sweat, his face streaked with tears. He wipes his face in the bottom of his shirt as Dr. King takes the disc from the video camera. Bucky looks to the clock and it only reads two-thirty. “Why’d you pull me out?” He asks, his voice sounding fragile.
Dr. King glances up as she makes a few notes on a pad of paper in her file. “You were reliving some particularly nasty memories, James. If we left you too long, and too much of the bad came back too fast, we risked having you slip into another catatonic episode.” She explains, passing him the disc of the session.
Bucky drags a hand through his hair, feeling more worn out than he can remember feeling in a long time. “Oh.” He replies.
“We’ll meet again next week, James. Go and get some rest.” She smiles warmly, and Bucky takes her advice.
This time when he reaches the apartment floor, Steve and Natalia are in an all out shouting match. Their voices are loud enough for him to hear what they’re saying, and Bucky isn’t surprised.
“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know!” Steve shouts. “It isn’t difficult to figure it out!”
“I mean, that I don’t fucking know, ok!? I don’t!” Natalia shouts back.
"That makes no sense! You either want to be with me, or you don’t. There isn’t exactly a grey area here, Nat.”
She growls, and the elevator doors open in time for Bucky to see her drag a hand through her hair. They’re on opposite sides of the living room. Steve is visibly upset, his big blue eyes shimmering wetly in the apartment lights. Natalia looks stressed, pacing the same small section of flooring with one hand on her hip, the other in her hair. Neither even notice Bucky as he enters the room.
“Not for you, maybe.” She snaps.
“Exactly.” Steve said bluntly. “I know what I want, and that’s you. So either we’re —“ He cuts himself off when his eyes fall on Bucky, and both of them fall silent. Natalia takes the opportunity to bolt, and grabs her jacket from the couch. “Natasha, wait!” Steve calls, but it’s too late, the elevator doors are closing behind her and she’s gone.
Steve is a wreck, and Bucky can tell. He wants to say something, he wants to do something to take the pain off his friend’s face. But before the chance is given, Steve stalks off down the hall and slams his bedroom door, and Bucky is left alone in the living room in silence. He sighs and walks in the direction Steve went and goes to knock on the door, but stops.
He knows Steve better than he thought. He can hear the way Steve sniffs through the door, clearing his throat and breathing heavily. Bucky remembers those sounds. He remembers hearing them as the apartment door closed, the morning that he shipped out back in 1942. Steve was always too proud to let people see him cry, and tried his best not to make a sound to draw attention to the fact he was upset. Bucky bites down on his lip and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling his heart all but rip itself apart. He knows that Steve wants to be left alone, so he gives the door one last long look before heading into his own room.