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“Thought you said this mission was supposed to be dangerous, Rogers?” you quipped into the coms. The edge of your baton plunged into the neck of a Hydra agent and the electric wiring jolted through the man’s body, wiping the smug smirk from his face as his body trembled and collapsed to the concrete. You wiped your brow, standing up straight as you made your way down the empty hallway to the control room.
“From where I’m standing,” you stepped over the unconscious body of the fourth Hydra agent you’d incapacitated, “the only threat in this base is me.”
“Keep your head on, Y/L/n,” Steve’s voice carried through the coms. “You’re not out yet.”
“You’re just jealous you’re stuck on the jet and not down in the action,” you teased. If you paused for a second longer, you might have imagined the pristinely perfect blue of his eyes roll to the back of his head.
“Just download the files we came for so we can get out of here,” Steve shot back, though there was a lingering laugh in his voice. “Bucky’s been driving me up a wall asking about when you’ll be home.”
You grinned; a rather cheery, bashful smile amongst the dark ruins of a once abandoned Hydra base. An agent at your feet began to stir and you wasted no time as you effortlessly twirled the baton between your fingertips and plunged the electric edge into his ribs. He jolted up for only a second before he slumped into a heap, unmoving.
“We both know Bucky’s tolerance for patience is rather low these days,” you smirked.
Steve chuckled. “He worries himself mad, is all.”
You nodded, a devious smile tugging at your cheeks. “His bed’s probably feeling cold, too.”
Steve groaned and you could practically imagine the tight-lipped frown on his lips, the lines on his forehead – the lingering evidence of an awkward, lanky boy from Brooklyn. “Not information I need to hear, Y/n.”
Your laugh echoed into the hallway as you jimmied open the lock to the control room, shoving a shoulder hard into the vulnerable crack in the door you’d pummeled a few bullets into. It slid open with an ear splinting creak, a wind of dust clouding up into the air at the sudden movement. You coughed, hiking up the edge of your suit to cover your mouth.
“This room hasn’t been touched in decades, Steve,” you observed, stepping further inside. You flipped on the light by the door and a soft buzzing purred in your ears as a flickering florescence illuminated the room. Layers of dust laid upon the surface of technology ancient enough to have been used by Tony’s father back when SHIELD was still operating under SSR.
“I don’t like you in there any longer than you need to be,” Steve said, his voice notably sterner. “Just download the files and get back to the jet. We don’t know if those guards called for backup before you knocked them out.”
You nodded, eyeing the room suspiciously. It left an unsettling feeling in your stomach as you caught sight of the Hydra logo engraved on the wall, its slithering tentacles curling around the room. To imagine the sort of men that had once occupied this room and the vile plans they shared for the future… you shivered.
“You got it, Cap.”
You tugged the flash drive from your pocket and quickly made your way to the center computer. Kicking out the fragile chair away from the desk, you stood at the keyboard and began to type the codes you’d been instructed to use by the intel team when prompted. With the flash drive inserted into the USB, you were beginning the sequence to transfer the data when a file caught your attention.
Blocked by a series of encrypted codes amongst an already near impenetrable firewall, the folder stood out from the rest, holding three times the data than the rest of the files you’d been instructed to download. It wasn’t named – not by Hydra and not by the SHIELD team who had ordered the transfer of all files in the hard drive – but a sinking feeling burned into your stomach. Hot, heavy – like molten lava searing through your flesh.
“Steve,” you gaped, heart racing as you stared at the file.
“What’s wrong?”
You couldn’t tera your eyes away from the file. “What are we here to download?”
“It’s above our clearance level.”
You could hear the hesitancy in Steve’s voice. He didn’t like being kept in the dark any more than you did, especially with matters related to Hydra.
“You’re Captain America,” you challenged, your hand gripping so tight to the mouse it started to ache. “Can’t you make it our clearance level?”
“Y/n,” Steve eased, the concern evident, “what is it?”
Hidden amongst an endless data dump of research and trials, of weapons manufacturing, of contact lists and shipment logos was a single file with the potential to destroy everything you held close. It threatened you. It threatened the man you loved. It mocked you through the vicious layer of glass upon the screen and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from its sinister grin.
“Steve, its—” You shuddered, trying to compose yourself. “They have information on the Winter Soldier program.”
There was no response on the other end of the coms.
Your body was paralyzed. Your breaths were coming in shallow and broken. An image of Bucky as you knew him struggled to push itself to the surface – soft flowing waves at his shoulders, a pinch of pink in his cheeks, a smile etched to his lips, and a sweetness in the gentle blue of his eyes – but all you could see was the man on the bridge. His eyes covered in black paint. Cold, empty. His body a weapon.
You stumbled back until you hit the row of computers behind you. Hands gripped down to the edge of the table as you heard Steve curse through the coms. The file stared back at you as you kept your eyes glued to the screen. It called you, beckoned you. You couldn’t let SHIELD get ahold of this file without knowing what was on it.
“I’m going to open it.”
A rustling echoed through the coms. “Y/n, don’t.”
You ignored him, determined now as you stepped up to the computer. Steve must have heard the clicking of the keyboard through the coms.
“Y/n, I’m serious,” he tried again, a little more desperate. “Forget breaking protocols, this is not something you want to see. You have no idea what could be in that file. Bucky wouldn’t want you to—”
“Bucky would understand if it meant keeping it out of the hands of someone who might use it against him,” you snapped back, already seven lines into decoding the Winter Soldier file. It had more firewalls up than the rest of the documents, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t crack.
“SHEILD wouldn’t—” Steve started, though he cut himself off before he could finish. Not even he was convinced of SHEILD’s moral superiority. He exhaled a tense sigh and you could picture as he pinched the bridge of his nose, a hand on his hip. “Just be quick about it.”
You weren’t planning on waiting for Steve’s permission, but an ounce of relief lifted some of the weight on your chest before you finished the last line of code. It was comforting to know he was with you on this, that he put Bucky above SHEILD and the Avengers, too.
There was no time to prepare when the decryption uncoded. Dozens of files and videos sprang across the dozens of monitors, encompassing the entire room and surrounding you. You clutched at your chest, heart pounding so loudly you wondered if Steve could hear it.
The first screen that caught your eye was two monitors to your left. Slowly, you gathered the strength to walk toward it. With every step you felt a tug pushing you backward, desperate in its attempt to shield you from what you’d uncovered. You pushed on despite its warning.
In the top right corner of the screen was an image of Bucky in his youth, dressed in his army uniform and with a face decades younger, softer. The rest of the file contained information markers, achievements on the battlefield from his time with the Howling Commandos, notable skills. In red marker, ‘sniper’ was circled three times.
You glanced up to find a screen one row ahead displaying a photograph of Bucky after the fall. Blood coated down the left side of his body, mangled flesh left behind over blue skin. There was a blur on his face, like he’d been moving, shouting, when the image was taken. He’d been resisting the vile touch of the Hydra scientists as they strapped him to the ruthless chill of a metal operating table. You clamped a hand over your mouth to shelter a scream.
To your right, the monitor listed in cold, clinical terms how they’d attached the metal arm to his left side, how they ripped open nerve endings and shredded what remained of his flesh. Documented like it was nothing more than a procedure, something to be learned from and used. There was pride laced into the words of the doctors who had torn apart the man you loved.
A row behind you detailed the Winter Soldier’s trigger words with small, handwritten notes on their effectiveness with each trial. Accounts of every attempt that left Bucky a sobbing mess on the floor, his hands pressed to his ears in a hopeless effort to block out the words. Accounts of the moments that left him motionless and empty inside – of when they went too far and stripped him of everything he was until he was almost nothing at all. Account of celebration when they finally achieved their goal and put their good work to test. They’d forced him to murder a nameless civilian in cold blood. The Hydra scientists drank champagne while Bucky cleans the blood from his hands.
At the edge of the first row, you found a list of punishments they’d used against him when he’d fallen out of line. Starvation, isolation, beatings, torture. A laundry list of places to cut and prod, tools to use that made him comply the fastest, the parts of his body that made him scream the loudest – a perfectly constructed manual of how to beat the Winter Soldier into submission. Your hands were shaking so terribly, you curled them to fists, and even then – it would not stop.
Tears sprang in your eyes as you walked around the room, drawn in a masochist trance to each screen as they displayed the various tortures Bucky had endured before he eventually broken to the will of Hydra.
But it wasn’t until the click of a projection illuminated against the Hydra emblem on the eastern wall that a strain of bile etched up your throat. The low crackle of decades old speakers burned through the room and you turned in horror as you heard the agonizing familiarity of Bucky’s voice echoing amongst the static.
“Don’t!” Bucky shouted—begged. His voice broke in the effort. It was higher than you’d known it to be, younger. Decades away from the man you knew. He shook with violent tremors as the men approached him. “Stop! Not—Not again. Please!”
Bucky was already strapped to the chair; bound by his wrists, his ankles, and a metal bar over his chest. His hair was cut short, eyes wide with fear as he thrashed away from the hands taping monitors to his heart. Shirt ripped from his body, his left shoulder was burned red with fresh scars and infection— bloodied, angry, violent sweeps of veins and tissues where metal consumed flesh. The appendage fresh on his body. His ribs were painted in blue and purple, cuts on his collarbone and cheeks.
He was screaming before they put the clamps against his temples.
You couldn’t hear Steve as he called your name – not as the electricity coursed through Bucky’s body, as scientists coldly shouted the trigger words over the break in his screams. His whole body was rigid, blood dripping down from his ears. Bile rose to your tongue and you expelled what remained inside your stomach to the concrete.
“Y/n! Talk to me!”
Steve.
You shook your head, tears openly streaming down your cheeks. You wiped your lips, staring in honor at the projection against the wall – at your sweet, achingly kind Bucky as they ripped him of his free will, as they tortured him until he was little more than the empty weapon they’d designed. He was so young; you didn’t realize how young he was when—
A hand gripped at your forearm and you turned to find Steve standing beside you. His gaze flickered to the monitors for only a second, his stare lingering on the projection as the machine finally powered down and Bucky slumped into the chair, unconscious. Steve’s jaw clenched, his face hardening over.
“Steve,” you exhaled, barely above a whisper, “we have to destroy this. If Bucky ever saw—”
“I know.” Steve was firm in his stance, a ruthless kind of anger burning on his features as he glared at the screens covering the room. He curled his hand to a fist. “We’ll wipe it. All of it.”
“What about the mission? The rest of the file…”
“Let me handle it,” Steve said, his teeth grinding as he watched the video of his friend lit up against the wall.
You nodded, a warm wash of relief pressing through your chest. On the projection above, you watched the scientists hull Bucky’s unconscious frame from the chair. His body was limp, thrown around like a rag doll.
You sank down against the edge of the table behind you, unable to hold yourself up as they dragged Bucky towards the camera. There, the dark bruising was evident along his temples and down by his cheekbones where the clamps had been. Burned flesh and deep shades of purple. Blood dripped from his ear.
Then, the video stopped. The projection turned off and the carving of the Hydra emblem against the wall stared blankly back at you.
You turned to find Steve typing rapidly at one of the computers. He was shaking his head, the frustration evident on his face. Then, he pulled the gun from his belt and fired four shots into the hard drive. You didn’t so much as blink. The monitor blackened, the room falling silent as sparks ignited and it went up in smoke.
“Will that be enough?” he asked, voice tense as he turned to you.
You swallowed, pointing to the towers on the west wall. “There’s backups over—”
Steve had already fired another three shots before you could finish your sentence. The towers were on fire, their lights flickering until they finally dimmed in a cloud of smoke. He turned to you again and this time, you gave him a single nod.
Steve placed a gentle hand on your back, guiding you to the exit. You wondered if he could feel how badly you were shaking.
“Bucky’s okay, Y/n,” he told you, his voice softer than you’d prepared for. “Hydra can’t hurt him anymore. He’s safe. You know he is.”
You nodded, trying to let the words sink in, though you suspected you would not be able to rid yourself of the gnawing pit in your stomach until you could see Bucky again with your own eyes. You stepped over the unconscious bodies along the hallway as you followed Steve to the jet. You didn’t say another word until you boarded the jet and sank into the copilot seat beside Steve.
The flight home was agonizing as you attempted to stifle the sobs that etched through your body. Steve gripped tight to the control panel, pretending not to hear.
***
Bucky was waiting for you when you landed.
He stood in his usual spot at the center of the hanger – arms folded over his chest as he and Natasha quietly entertained Sam’s usual chatter. His hair blew against the wind from the engines and his body seemed to relax as you caught sight of him through the slit of the loading dock as it lowered to the floor.
A smile lifted at his cheeks as he blatantly ignored whatever Sam was saying a took a few steps closer to you. He carried himself with a lightness you’d hadn’t seen in that nightmarish footage. His skin was sun-kissed instead of sunken and pale. His lips were full and pink instead of broken and bloodied. His laugh echoed and almost buckled your knees.
You didn’t bother grabbing your equipment or waiting for the panel to settle against the firm surface of the concrete before you bolted towards him.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Bucky chuckled, grinning at the sight of you, “did you miss—oomf.”
You slammed to his chest; arms wrapped tight around his neck. He froze, the shift almost instant as his hand slid along your spine, sensing the trembling in your body as you clung to him. It was like you couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t manage to secure him safely enough against you, couldn’t convince yourself that he was right here and protected and loved and not still bound to that awful machine.
“It’s alright. I’ve got you, honey,” he cooed cautiously, quiet enough for only your ear to hear. Then, Bucky turned to Steve as you listened for the heavy weight of his footsteps as he dragged himself from the jet. “What happened out there?”
Sam and Natasha were quiet as Steve ran a hand down his face. If it were possible, you held onto Bucky tighter. He pressed a kiss to your shoulder.
“It’ll be best if you let us deal with it, Buck,” Steve eased, nodding toward Sam and Natasha.
You could feel the shift in Bucky’s stance, the argument building, and you tapped Bucky’s shoulder blade three times in quick succession with the pad of your thumb. He stilled and forced his muscles to relax. It was a code you’d come up with years ago – a silent plea to ‘trust me.’ Three taps.
Bucky nodded. “Alright, just… swear you’ll rope me in if you need help.”
Steve smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course, pal.”
He set a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and you could feel Steve’s fingertips graze your arm. You made a mental note to thank him when this was over; for all he’d done for Bucky and strength he lent to you.
You didn’t flinch in your grip on Bucky even as three sets of footsteps faded in their echo. Bucky didn’t dare attempt to peal you from your hold and instead, he simply ran a hand along your spine, humming soft enough for you to feel the vibration against your chest. Real. Tangible. Safe.
“We’ve got an audience,” he murmured to your ear; not out of embarrassment, but of concern. “Let’s find some privacy, okay?”
You nodded weakly against his neck and slowly began to pull away from his embrace. You kept a hand along his shoulder, another sliding down his right arm to hold his hand – something to grip onto to remind yourself he was here with you, that he was safe, that Hydra could not touch him as long as you did.
Bucky took in a shallow, tense breath as he met your eye. The cool touch of metal gently grazed over your cheekbones, smearing the tears before they fell. He softened, looking over you with bated breath as his eyes trailed over your suit in search of injury.
“I’m not hurt,” you told him and he relaxed a bit at that.
He pushed out a smile and gripped your hand firm enough for it to ache – grounding you. Then, he led you away from the curious stares of the agents lingering around the hanger. Their gaze followed you, their hushed whispers rippling in your wake.
“Ignore them,” Bucky said softly.
You nodded, understanding that he spoke from experience. Even in his years working with SHEILD and the Avenger, after all he’d been through, there were still some who questioned his allegiance, who kept their gossip and slander to the shadows. It didn’t bother him now as much as it did in the beginning, but it still managed to break your heart.
A silence carried between you as he guided you to the elevator, and then up to the residence floors. It was a small comfort and his grip on your hand did not falter for even a moment, not even as he crossed into the threshold of his bedroom.
“Now,” he started, closing the door behind you, “can you tell me what’s got you so shaken?”
You clenched your jaw, sinking down to the edge of his mattress. Your arms folded protectively over your chest as Bucky settled in beside you, watching as you bit down so hard on your lip it began to bleed. Tears sprang to your eyes as he cautiously set his hand to your jawline and thumbed at your lower lip until you unlatched your bite. He smiled sadly at you.
“Talk to me,” he whispered soothingly. “Let me help—”
“You feel safe here, don’t you?”
Bucky blinked a few times, thrown by your question. He must have noticed the flash of uncertainty in your voice, the worry lines etched into your features, and he softened.
He contemplated it for a moment before he nodded. “Where’s this coming from?”
“With SHEILD?” you asked again, hands wringing into your suit. “With the team? With… with me?”
Bucky narrowed his eyes. He slid his hand against your thigh in long, sweeping motions to draw the anxiety from its clutch in your muscles. When you looked at him again, you found him smiling sweetly at you.
“Of course, I do, sweetheart,” he said, though he paused for a moment as if second guessing his answer. “You know there will always be moments when I have doubts. I don’t know if I’ll ever be rid of that completely, but it doesn’t last long, not when you’re with me. This team, you… you’re family to me.”
You nodded, though you were unconvinced. You’d seen him wake from nightmares that left him broken and afraid, desperately clawing his way to the corner of the room in fear you’d hurt him. You’d seen the layers of guilt and shame that smothered him, sinking him below the surface. You’d seen how he’d flinched for nearly three months when Sam raised a hand in greeting.
Bucky sighed. “What happened on that mission, Y/n?”
You took a deep breath, turning on the edge of the bed to face him completely. You leaned forward and held both sides of his face delicately between your hands. He watched you as your eyes lingered over his temples, untouched and clear of burns and bruises, where the clamps had singed his skin. He watched as you traced your thumbs over his cheekbones where they were painted dark purple, broken blood vessels in the exertion of the chair. You touched at the edge of his earlobe, where blood had dripped from his ear.
“Y/n…”
“I won’t ever hurt you,” you whispered and the words seemed to shock him; not in their truth, of which Bucky believed with undying certainty, but in the break of your voice – the brokenness, the guilt, the shame, the longing. You bit back tears as Bucky turned his head only enough to press a kiss to your palm.
“I won’t let them touch you again. I’ll kill every last one of them before they can,” you swore through your tears. Bucky only nodded, very slowly, impossibly subtle, as he seemed to understand what you’d seen in the Hydra base.
You’d known what they’d done to him. Bucky only shared glimpses of his history with Hydra but you’d heard enough through the idle chatter of SHEILD agents and the small semblance of truth in the tabloids. You’d known enough and never dared to ask him for more.
Seeing it was something else entirely.
Watching as the painfully young, idealistic boy from his youth was ripped apart and made again into something empty and broken. Watching as they destroyed this beautiful man as you held him in your hands, listening to his scream as it tore through the film and ripped straight through your heart.
It shattered you.
Slowly, you leaned into him and touched your lips to his right temple. The tissue was long healed, the bruising decades faded, but you kissed him with the delicacy of fresh wounds. He sighed, a breath catching in his throat before you moved to his left side.
There, you pressed another kiss over what was once raw and burned flesh.
You moved to his cheek bones that had been littered in shades of blue and purple. Your lips feathered to his skin, so soft he might not have felt it if you hadn’t heard the slight tremble in his breaths with every touch. You kissed each of the wounds you’d seen inflicted in that footage, of the awful chair that stole his memories and his will. You kissed him until you tasted the salt of his tears.
“Being here, with you,” Bucky started, reflective eyes staring adoringly back at you, “was worth every second of it.”
You shook your head, heart splintering at the seams. “Don’t say that…”
“I mean it.” He circled his hands around yours, gently pulling them from their hold on his cheeks to press his lips to your knuckles. Then, he held them in his lap, caged in warmth and a tenderness he had not known for decades. When he smiled for you, a warmth burned through your chest – something safe and inviting, loving.
You looked up at the man you loved, at the tenderness with which he watched you, at the kindness etched deep into his bones, the loyalty burned into his very soul; a man who had been joyful and soft before the world broke him into something sharp and hollow. He was rebuilding himself now, slowly. With you, in the quiet sanctuary of his room, he was gentle and loving and good. He was a glimpse of the man you’d seen thrown to the destruction of the chair.
“You didn’t deserve any of it,” you exhaled, trying to cast out the image of him bound to the awful machine as it plagued your mind, the scream in his voice as the electricity jolted through his body. Tears blurred through your vision. “What they did to you…”
“I know. But I’m okay, sweetheart,” Bucky stressed with loving patience, sensing the shadow of guilt as it drove its incessant blade against you. “Whatever you saw, whatever’s making you afraid for me… it’s over. Hydra can’t hurt me anymore. I’m okay.”
He shook his head, determined as a smile light up bright into his eyes. “I’m more than okay. I’m happy. There was a long time when I thought I might not ever know that feeling again.”
Bucky tugged your stiff body into his arms, running his hands along your back until you relaxed against him. He pressed his lips to your crown, over your hairline and along your forehead – the gentle reminders that he was there with you as the darkness threatened to pull you under. You curled against him as tight as you could manage until Bucky eased you back onto the bed alongside him, drawing sheets over your bodies still dressed in uniform, laying your head to his chest to listen for his heart.
“I wish I could go back and save you from it,” you murmured quietly as his fingertips drew patterns to your shoulder. Your hand clutched into the fabric of his shirt as the contents of the Winter Soldier project burned into your mind – the experiments, the punishments, that film.
“I wouldn’t be here with you now if you did,” Bucky reminded you gently.
You closed your eyes, tears spilling over the bridge of your nose. “I’d do it, Bucky. I’d give you up if it meant saving you from those monsters… what they’d done to you… all that pain… your screams…”
The film flashed before your eyes again and you were thrown under currents as you watched those scientists strap the man you loved so desperately to a machine that tortured him until his mind gave out, as you listened to him beg and cry until his voice broke, as you saw the sweet, loving man drained from his body and a hollowness replaced.
Bucky wrapped you as tight to his chest as he could manage as the sobs finally broke through. You couldn’t contain it anymore, couldn’t suppress the lump in your throat as it threatened to choke you raw, and Bucky held you through every wave as it drowned you in his arms.
You despised yourself for allowing him to comfort you over his own torture, how he soothed through the pain of what he had endured. For you, it was fresh and bleeding and open. For Bucky, it had scarred over in rough tissue and discolored with age. The soft hum of his voice was the only thing grounding you from the brink.
“You bring me a little further away from that cell every day, Y/n,” Bucky eased before he pressed a kiss to your temple, one the lingered warm against your skin under the heat of his breath. “You remind me what it feels like to be safe and protected and… loved. It’s enough to outweigh the memories of my past, of what Hydra did. It’s enough to let me rebuild again.”
His heart was even, steady, as you listened for it against his chest. There was no flicker of doubt, no hesitancy in his words. His thumb swept delicately against your cheek, brushing the tears before they could fall.
“I’m so proud of you… of how far you’ve come,” you told him, tracing against the stubble on his jawline. “You’re a good man, Bucky.”
He smiled at you before he leaned down to press a chaste kiss to your lips. It was short and brief, but it held a weight within the touch; it conveyed more than he could with words and you felt it in the way he held you.
When you opened your eyes again, you didn’t see the traces of the man strapped to the chair – no brushstrokes of blue or purple, no hollowed and sunken eyes, no raw and burned flesh upon his temples. You listened for the even pace of his breathing, of his heart beating soundly inside his chest. The feel of his warm skin and the touch of pink in his cheeks as the sunlight cast in from the window and graced over him.
When you looked at him again, you saw the man he was now.
You saw the laugh lines by his eyes and the resilience etched deep into his bones, the smile bright upon his face, felt the touch of his hands as they drew gentle patterns along your back.
Bucky Barnes had survived more than anyone should and still, here he was, as loving and kind as the man they dared to force into that chair. It was carved so deep into his very being, not even Hydra could steal it from him. You’d give your last breath to defend that part of him. He knew it, too.
Perhaps that was what granted him such peace.