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For the first few months, Bucky doesn’t remember much.
It’s true, fragments of it all are coming back to him from time to time. He’s remembered the most important things, anyway, so nobody’s too eager to remind him of… let’s say, the least important things on the scale of “normal” to “completely traumatizing for everyone involved”.
Steve is the one who tries the most. He finds photos from their time together, either those few he had before the army (that either Pepper has somehow managed to get back through her extraordinary connections, or he happened to have with him the day he was frozen), or others he’s found on the internet. He shows Bucky pictures from the mid-forties until the present day, and does his best to show him that times have changed for the best in general, that it’s not so bad, and Bucky would appreciate it, if he didn’t prefer to forget.
At first all he does is nod, and he either pretends he recalls what Steve is showing him at the time, or makes sure he doesn’t nod too enthusiastically and show the difference between his reactions towards real and fake memories. He tries to remember, mostly to make Steve happy, because if there’s one thing he’s sure of is that he really wants to make Steve happy.
It’s not that bad until Bucky walks in on Bruce watching a documentary on WWII. He only catches a few glimpses before Bruce turns off the TV in a very obviously fake casual way, but he suddenly remembers the sounds and the panic and the agony, and the war is screaming inside his head and then the experiments are coming back to him, and then he’s falling, falling, falling –
He realizes he’s had a panic attack when he feels Steve’s weirdly strong arms around him. At first he doesn’t realize who’s holding him, but there’s a Steve scent in his nostrils, and his face is pressed against a massive chest, and he hugs back and squeezes like there’s no tomorrow, and he’s crying like a baby, and he’s too aware of people politely leaving the room, he can hear them walking and moving and breathing and he can almost hear their hearts beating even through the haze in his head because that’s how they built him, that’s what he was meant to do, to feel everything around him, everything –
He spends days after that trying to blank his mind. He wonders if he was better off dead. He doesn’t want to go back to his old kind of death, where it was fuzzy and cold and sometimes too hot, and there were gunshots and crazy scientists involved. He wonders if the other kind of death, the real one, would bring him peace. He’s never seen a dead person get up and kill people or get orders from anyone, and well, if anyone dead is having troubles sleeping and is haunted by their own actions, at least they are doing it quietly, without messing up the lives of fucking everyone around them.
Bucky, however, knows for a fact that Steve would be really fucking sad if he lost him again, so he decides to not go away the way he’s found himself planning a couple of times. He doesn’t even know if normal ways to die even work for him, anyway. It’s a super-soldier thing.
It’s been six months already, when Bucky starts having dreams too vivid even for him, and wakes up in a state beyond terror, frozen in his bed. He remembers so clearly now. He remembers the first man he killed as the Winter Soldier, and his heart is too heavy for his mouth to let go of the scream inside his chest.
His victim was a scientist, Bucky remembers, a talented man; way too talented for Hydra. He was young, maybe in his mid-forties, and Bucky can’t remember his name, but he remembers he worked in a facility that smelt like azaleas and that he had a receding hairline and eyes like a dog, dark and pleading. He had a picture of his family on his desk. His kids looked very much like him and like each other. Bucky remembers how he’d smashed the man’s head with his very arm, the arm that is still on his side, and how the man’s blood had splattered his white coat and made morbid crimson patterns spread between the tiles on the floor.
Bucky gets up, breathing heavily, on the verge of another panic attack. He can’t do this. He doesn’t deserve to be alive when that man has been dead for years, so much earlier than his time. He removes the hair from his face and the cold metal touches his forehead and he wants to jump back and away from that monstrosity that’s stuck on his shoulder. He runs to the bathroom and grabs a razor, and he’s not sure what he’s going to do until he holds it against the base of the arm on his shoulder, and he laughs then, laughs until there are tears running from his eyes, because what’s a razor going to do where guns and actual blades have failed?
He catches the razor in his metal hand and takes it on the base of his other arm, the good one, the one that has done as many bad deeds as the other, and draws a red line across it, from the edge of his shoulder almost down to his armpit. A chill runs through him as the sharp pain slices his skin, and for a moment his mind is focused on it. His brain is full of his physical existence, on the now, he’s here now and he’s hurting, and it’s not the 40’s anymore, he’s not killing anyone, the red line is not on the floor anymore, it’s on his arm, and he deserves it, because the least he can do for the nameless scientists is remember him by a mark on his arm. He knows he’s cut deep, and super-soldier or not, the line is going to be there for some time. It seems like a proper memorial.
The next morning, nobody notices a thing, but Bucky tells Steve he’s starting to remember. Steve isn’t sure what he should do, that’s clear enough. He offers to show Bucky more pictures, or he could even leave him alone to do it in his own pace, no big deal, he just wants Bucky to be comfortable, and Bucky says he’s gonna be fine on his own.
He’s not.
He starts remembering faces at night, when he’s alone. He seems to forget himself the rest of the day, when he’s with the others. Steve is always up for anything Bucky can think of, and Natasha’s really nice to him in the way that he likes, all teasing and friendly violence if needed, and Sam is one of the funniest guys Bucky’s ever met; so Bucky’s days are good, borderline very good. But at night he’s alone in his room, and his arm feels cold, and he doesn’t like the cold anymore, and there are faces and events coming back to him. He remembers the soldier trying to protect his general and the brains and blood on the wall after Bucky pulled the trigger once, twice, until no more was needed. He remembers the doctor that shot at him seven times from two different handguns, and how the red on her throat matched the red of her lips as Bucky left the room. He remembers the father trying to protect his son from the merciless killer coming towards them, the moving train around them not slowing his movements at all, and he remembers how his arm jerked with the bang of his gun, and how he didn’t wince at the sound. And the slaughter doesn’t stop there. He remembers faces, men, women, black, white, brown, young, old, fat, thin, strong, weak, he didn’t care; they weren’t people, they were targets. And targets don’t have names, and he doesn’t know where to find them now, how to visit their graves and tell them he’s sorry, god, he’s so – bullshit, sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it.
So when the guilt gets too much, he presses the razor against his skin again.
It goes on for months. It’s not too often, Bucky thinks. Not compared to what he could be doing, considering the situation. He’s got other ways to relive the tension. He goes to the gym in Stark Tower, and he fights with Steve the way they never got the chance to. It’s not much, not enough to make him slip back to his memories; he doesn’t let himself give everything to the spar. He only punches and kicks without holding back when he’s alone against a boxing bag, and he’s punched holes in a couple of them. He goes running; not jogging, running. He’s found some good angry music of the 21st century that does wonders for his indescribable tension.
But every few days, his dreams get worse and worse, and he carves another line on the base of his arm.
It’s summertime, and everyone is talking about going to the beach. Tony offers to fly them all in a jet or build them a private pool or something, and everyone laughs at his teasing fights with Pepper. Bucky laughs too. However, a part of him doesn’t even want to hear about swimming or anything of the sort. He used to enjoy it, and he wants to enjoy it again, but the lines on his arm go almost to his elbow, victim after victim, and Bucky’s afraid he’s going to use up the space in his entire body before he manages to honor all the people that have died in his hands. He doesn’t want anyone to see, least of all Steve. Everyone’s getting rid of their long-sleeves, Steve too, and Sam, and Nat, and Bucky’s still in his button-ups, and he’s heard enough Winter Soldier jokes to last him another couple of lifetimes. Tony even has Jarvis announce that there’s a sweater for Bucky in the living room, and when Bucky opens the package, it has a fucking image of a tropical beach sewn in the front. God knows where the hell Tony found it. Bucky wears it for three days in a row just to spite him.
It’s about the end of that third day when Bucky takes off the ridiculous sweater because it’s not working. He still feels cold and he’s shivering, and it feels more right to tremble with his skin bare than under a thick piece of clothing. He stays in his room, curled up, not crying this time. He’s a super-soldier, for fuck’s sake, and he’s ninety-five years old and still kicks ass. He has his best friend and people who like him at the best of cases and tolerate him at the worst, and he lives in a place where robots obey his every need and simply doesn’t even think of money as an issue. He’s got everything. He has no reasons to cry.
Except the fact that he doesn’t deserve anything of what he has, especially when each and every one of the people that haunt his dreams could have had it and now he’s the one who’s enjoying it.
He’s too frustrated this time. He’s shaking, and he’s not paying attention. The razor’s kind of blunt now, and he grunts as it cuts his skin. There are tears in his eyes, blurring his vision, despite his best efforts.
He should have noticed Steve, he knows that. His senses are still supposed to be working perfectly. But he doesn’t notice him. Maybe a part of him does, but it doesn’t warn the rest of him.
He feels a presence somewhere in front of him. Strangely, he feels as if Steve is small again, and it makes him feel more at home. He looks up, still breathing heavily, still sobbing, still only half-seeing through the haze in his eyes. Steve’s closed the door again, and he’s just… there. Looking at Bucky. Seeing him.
Bucky hopes Steve will get mad at him, scream, shout, maybe hit him a few times to stop him from being stupid. He knows there’s no logical excuse for what he’s doing. In his mind, it makes sense, but he knows Steve won’t like it.
And he doesn’t, but not in the way Bucky’s desperate part hoped for.
“Too much red, Stevie,” he hears himself mutter. “Too much red. I can’t forget about it. My mind’s already all over the place. I can’t forget them. I can’t, I –“
Steve takes his hands, and Bucky bites his trembling lip, tasting the salt from his tears. His chest hurts more than his arm ever did when he left it back on a cliff somewhere, and he wants to pull away from Steve’s grip, he can’t stand it; Bucky used to hold him like that when they were young and thought their biggest problem was the War, and it’s tender and intimate and understanding, and not right for the pride of the nation and his disgrace of a friend. It’s not right for the hands that hold the Shield to hold the hand that brought pain and destruction.
The razor is still in his hand, and he’s worried he will cut Steve for a second, and he can’t have that in his ledger as well.
But Steve just looks at him.
“You’re not helping your mind remember this way, Buck,” he says quietly, and gently takes the tiny blade from Bucky’s hand. Bucky doesn’t stop him. Steve looks at the razor; such a tiny thing, Bucky thinks suddenly.
To Bucky’s surprise, Steve doesn’t throw it away. He puts it back into Bucky’s metal palm, and closes the hand around it, and squeezes. It doesn’t hurt, and when Steve lets Bucky open his hand, the razor is shattered. His hand is intact. He’s not in pain, but he feels the points the razor put pressure on in his metal hand as if it were an actual part of him, only indestructible.
Which it kind of is.
Steve looks him in the eyes, and there’s no pity there, and Bucky kind of wants to cry again.
“Do you want to talk to me about them all?”
And Bucky breaks, and he talks.
And Steve listens.
Bucky talks about each and every one of the people he’s killed, how he did it, how it’s all coming back, and how he hates it with every fiber of his existence. He talks about what he did and how they all reacted; what their faces looked like; what details he remembers through the haze. He talks about the times he was frozen in the lab, again and again, his mind wiped clean and his soul getting dirtier and dirtier with each passing time. He talks about the feeling of the freezer they put him into, how the metal arm sometimes stuck against his body and there were pieces of his skin left on it when he pulled away and he didn’t even care, nobody cared, as long as he didn’t complain about it, and how could he even complain? He talks about how children ran away from him sometimes, how old people either stood up to him or screamed or accepted their fate silently, how parents protected their children. He’s told Steve everything before, but not like this. Back then everything had just happened to the Winter Soldier; now it’s all happened to Bucky. No, now it’s all been caused by Bucky, and that’s even worse.
Bucky only realizes how late it is because his stomach suddenly makes noises. Steve is still looking at him; not with pity or with disgust, like Bucky’s been afraid of, but with…
Yeah, that’s the love he’s had in his eyes since there was had been only one World War, and Bucky doesn’t deserve it in the least, but he doesn’t doubt that he has it.
Steve orders food for the both of them and sleeps in Bucky’s room that night. He lets him speak or stay silent whenever he has to and doesn’t ask any questions he’s not sure Bucky wants to answer. Bucky doesn’t know how Steve does that. It’s not Captain America who does those tricks, it’s his Steve; he’s had this talent since forever.
Bucky curls up in his bed, and when Steve touches him and actually becomes the big spoon for him, he doesn’t protest.
In the next day, Bucky wakes up after midday, and he’s alone. The first thing he realizes is that he’s slept, and he’s slept well, and he had no nightmares that night. His eyes are still red and itchy, and his throat is kind of dry, and there’s a sting in the already healing crimson line on his upper arm, and he’s hungry and thirsty and needs a smoke and a good pee, but the other side of his bed is messier than his own and it smells like Steve in that very specific kind of way it used to more than seventy fucking years ago.
He stays in the shower much longer than he has to, but hey, Stark can afford it. He gets out in a cloud of steam and gets comfy in his bed, not bothering to tidy it up, only with a towel around his hips. He’s thoroughly drying his prosthesis when Steve comes in, all smiles, like Bucky hasn’t been opening the darkest pits of his heart to him.
“I’ve got something to show you,” Steve says, and waits for Bucky to dry his arm and throw some wrinkled, almost stinky clothes on him before he actually takes him by the hand and leads him to the elevator, and then to the roof, where it’s hot and sunny and they can see the entire city around them. The entire team loves the roof, each for their own reasons. Bucky is probably the only one who’s not particularly excited about it.
Until now.
Steve shows him a place in the shade where there are rows of dirt. It’s recently dug, and there are bags of fertilizer and gloves and gardening tools next to them, all still in the bags from the store.
Bucky looks at Steve, waiting for an explanation.
“I got you these,” Steve says, and hands him something papery and kind of crunchy. Bucky examines it, and it’s a couple of bags of flower seeds stapled together. Cosmos flowers and peonies. He raises an eyebrow at Steve.
“I also got you this,” Steve continues and hands him a red marker. “In case you want to draw on you again. And the flowers are for a proper memorial. All those people sound pretty great to only have a line as a token of remembrance. Let’s make them something good, shall we?”
And he hands Bucky a hoe with a smile on his face.
At first, Bucky thinks it’s kind of stupid. Steve doesn’t know what it’s like. Well, he knows, but he doesn’t feel it. But he appreciates the intentions, and he lets Steve count the lines on his arm and take out one flower seed for each of them. And he digs the holes, and gets his hands dirty, and plants the seeds and waters them, and he has to admit it feels kind of good.
He comes back every day, the first couple of times with Steve, to make him feel as if he appreciates his strange gift, but then he finds himself coming back at random times of the day to see if there are any flowers. He discovers that he likes to take care of something fresh and growing, and dirt is kind of fun to remove from the gaps in his prosthesis.
It’s a few days later, and Bucky hasn’t looked for a new razor yet, because the marker is strangely effective. Every time he remembers one more person, one more face, one more story, he draws a red line that stays there until he goes upstairs to plant another seed. And on the twelfth day, there’s some green in the dirt, and Bucky spends half his time on the roof waiting for the flowers to magically appear. The rest of the team brings a plastic pool and a mini freezer and board games and even recliners and volley balls and turn the roof into a ridiculous kind of cheap beach, but Bucky’s still watching the flower bed.
And when the flowers start blooming, vivid crimson and stunning, Bucky feels happier than he has in a long time. They’re beautiful and wonderfully alive, and they form thick red lines of life and rebirth and maybe, deep down, some forgiveness.
That night, when everyone’s asleep, Bucky crawls into Steve’s bed, and becomes the big spoon this time.
“Thank you,” he whispers, and sees Steve smile with his eyes still closed, before pressing his good arm under his friend’s head, the blonde hair hiding the scars. Bucky smiles.
He doesn’t really need to see them anymore anyway.