Chapter Text
If it wasn’t for the way consciousness had risen up to slam into him, a ragged gasp dragging itself from his lungs as he lurches upright, he would think it was a dream. Some shadowy thing his sleep-addled and desperate mind had conjured up. It’s the only explanation he can come up with for why Bucky would be standing here in his room.
Even in the darkness of the room, dimly lit by the moonlight streaming in through the open window, he looks awful and Steve’s having trouble wrapping his mind around his presence. Stock still with his back to the window, Bucky’s got a blank look on his face, an unreadable mask that hides away anything that might be going through his mind, from recognition to intentions.
There’s a part of him, an aching part of him that doesn’t care about logic or his own self-preservation, that is thrilled to see him. It’s taking more than a little restraint to not go to Bucky, to pull him into his arms. Because this is the first time since he found out Bucky was alive that he isn’t immediately trying to kill him and for some god-forsaken reason, that’s enough for Steve.
But he doesn’t dare move. Sense wins out over and he manages to stay still. He knows that Bucky’s aware of him being awake, he hadn’t exactly woken gracefully. But he hasn’t moved since Steve sat up, hasn’t even blinked. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he takes him in, eerily still.
“Buck,” he calls softly but there’s no response.
The shield is resting against the edge of his bed, always close by but he doesn’t feel the urge to go for it. Or at least, he’s hopeful that he won’t have to go for it. Bucky doesn’t seem to be preparing to attack him but there’s nothing to imply this is a friendly visit either.
“Bucky,” he calls again, and still Bucky is a statue silhouetted by the moonlight. Swallowing, he tries to steady himself. His stomach does a queasy flip. “Soldier?” He says quietly, remembering what he’d seen in Bucky’s files.
His head snaps to Steve’s immediately, eyes too darkened by shadows for Steve to properly see. The hollowing effect the darkness has on his eyes sends a chill down Steve’s spine and he has to remind himself that this is Bucky. No matter what, no matter how he is behaving, he’s still Bucky. His Bucky.
“Friday, can I get a little light?” Steve says and the lamp next to his bed flares to life, a soft, warm glow muted under the navy blue shade. Bucky flinches away from the sudden brightness.
He’s ghostly pale, which only emphasizes the bags under his eyes, dark as bruises surrounding his bloodshot eyes. There’s a deep gash on his forehead and it looks relatively new and his lips is split. There's some swelling on his cheek as well, bruising darkening his jawline. He’s got no idea whether or not the serum that Zola created has the same healing capabilities as his but all of this looks brand new like it hasn’t healed at all.
“You know me?” Steve asks him, quietly, wary but not unkind. He just wants to see where Bucky’s at, whether his memories have come back at all. He’s so sure that Bucky at least remembers something about him, otherwise, why would he have saved him?
“Not—“ Bucky frowns, deep concentration chiseling lines into his face as his brows pull into each other. “Doesn’t make sense. There are—flashes.”
Steve nods, hardly breathing as he hears the rasping, croak of Bucky’s voice, as though he hadn’t used it in a long time. And Steve supposed that he hasn’t since he’s on the run from HYDRA and the federal government right now.
“Alright,” Steve says when Bucky doesn’t volunteer any more information. “What are you—what are you doing here?”
“Don’t want to go back.” Bucky rasps and Steve frowns in confusion. “Don’t want—they’re looking.”
Steve knows that HYDRA, or at least what’s left of HYDRA, is still looking for Bucky. And while he’s been focusing his efforts on bringing Bucky back for the last month, his team has been focused on taking down HYDRA. The way Steve figures it, if he can’t bring Bucky to safety, he can stop the people who are putting him in harm's way to begin with.
“I know,” Steve says. “We’re trying to stop them.”
“Found me,” Bucky says quietly. “Don’t want to go back.”
“You don’t have to, Bucky,” Steve says, moving to get up but Bucky takes a jerky step back towards the window and Steve stops. He doesn’t want him to run. “You don’t have to go back to them Bucky, don’t worry. I—what do you mean they found you?”
“Found the warehouse,” Bucky says. “Had to kill them.”
Steve cringes. He gets it. And he knows that it was in self-defense but Bucky looks haunted and there’s no doubt it’s not a welcome update. Though Steve is glad it was them and not Bucky. He doesn’t exactly have sympathy for the loss of life here, just that he hates the headaches that come from having to clean this stuff up.
But if Bucky had to kill the HYDRA agents who attacked him, there’s a chance he’s injured. Steve’s eyes roam over him and he notices the dark, wet spot on Bucky’s suit, just to the right of his navel, for the first time.
“You’re hurt,” Steve says and this time he does get up. Bucky takes a hasty step backward and Steve puts his hands up. “Hey, it’s alright, Buck I-I’m gonna help you, okay? Just—lemme take a look, yeah?” Bucky’s looking at him warily, his injured side turned away from Steve. He’s not sure if he’s a gunshot or a knife but he knows that Bucky’s bleeding and he needs to get patched up. “Let me help you,” Steve says, softly. “I—you need medical attention.”
“It’s fine,” Bucky grunts and the set of his jaw makes Steve want to sob. Because Bucky had always been stubborn and the way the muscle in his jaw jumps as he clenches his teeth is so achingly familiar, Steve wants to grab his face and plant a kiss along the line of his stupid, stubborn jaw.
“It’s not, you’re hurt,” Steve argues. “Please, let me patch you up,” he pleads.
“P-please,” Bucky whispers, eyes wild. “I—please.”
“Bucky, I won’t hurt you,” Steve says. “I’ll never hurt you again, I-I’m sorry about what happened in D.C,” he says. “But I’ll never do anything like that again, please, just let me help you.” The uncertainty, written all over his face, hurts and Steve has to bite back the urge to cry. Because Bucky has never not trusted him. From the moment they’d met, they always had trust, implicit and complete. “I promise, Bucky, I won’t hurt you.”
Bucky gives him a single jerking nod and Steve sighs. “Okay, come with me and I’ll—I’ll figure it out,” Steve says, knowing he is going to have to patch Bucky up himself. He’s just hoping that the wound isn’t something too serious because Bucky is not going to hang around if he calls in Tony.
1939
“Wouldya hold still?”
Steve hisses and jerks his chin away but strong fingers hold him steady.
“If you didn’t want to hold still to get cleaned up, then you shouldn’t have gotten your ass kicked,” Bucky scolds him, dabbing at the gash on his cheek with rubbing alcohol and a cloth.
“Buck, you don’t understand,” Steve argues.
“I understand you’re not a kid anymore, Steve, I understand you’re too old to be going around picking fights like this,” Bucky says.
“I didn’t pick a fight,” Steve grumbles, instinctively trying to tug his chin away from the burn of the alcohol. Bucky tuts at him and gives him a withering look and he stills. “Who knows what he’da done to that lady if I hadn’t stepped in. He was a creep, Buck, and she wanted him to leave her be.”
“And you just had to be her hero, huh?” Bucky says. “Fat lotta good it did ya.”
“That’s not why I did it,” Steve says. “I didn’t do it to be a—hey, watch it, would ya?” He complains when Bucky rubs too hard at the cut. Bucky, cringing and giving him an apologetic frown, mumbles an apology and dabs more lightly at it. “I didn’t do it to be a hero, I did it cause it was the right thing to do and no one else was doing it. What should I have done? Let something bad happen to her?”
“Oh, don’t go putting words in my mouth,” Bucky gives him a look. “I’m just saying, you always seem to be in these situations, you ever think about minding your own business?”
“No,” Steve says. “I don’t think about that. If that was my Ma walking home, or Becca—“
“Alright, alright, I take your point,” Bucky glares at him. “But you have to admit, you get into fights you’ve got no business being in.”
“Not this time,” Steve says. “If good men stand by while bad ones hurt people, we’re no better than those men.”
“God, Stevie, I’m not asking you to let some creep hurt a woman, I’m asking you to not put yourself in danger so much,” Bucky snaps. “Just because you happen to have a good reason this time, doesn’t mean you usually do! I’m asking you to have fewer reasons for me to clean up your blood.”
Steve falls silent then, eyes dropping down to his shoes. It is always Bucky who ends up having to do this for him when he comes home beaten up and bloodied. Or worse, when Bucky finds him in the middle of a brawl and has to drag him out of it before he gets himself killed. It used to be his Ma when he was real young but ever since he started hanging around Bucky, he’s been to the one to do it. And over the years he’s gotten quite good at it.
But Steve hasn’t really stopped to think about what having to do that all the time must be like for Bucky. It’s been ten years of busted lips and black eyes and bloodied noses. And even if this time, Steve was justified in what he’d done, it didn’t make this part any easier for Bucky.
The guy had been bothering the girl for the better part of three blocks before he finally grabbed her. She let out a shriek, struggling against his grip and Steve flew into action. Night had already fallen and people were inclined to ignore a shout for help but Steve wasn’t like most people. He rushed the guy, managing to topple him sideways with the force of his body sheerly because he’d caught him off guard.
“Run!” He shouted at the girl who had spun free from the man’s hold as he stumbled down. “Go on, run!”
She took off without another word, speeding off towards a more brightly light area and disappearing around a corner. The guy was on top of Steve before he could blink, knocking him down with one hit before jumping on top of him. Steve didn’t care though, he knew what that guy had planned for the young woman and he wasn’t going to just stand by and let it happen.
“I just hate seeing you like this, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, hand coming up to cup his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Steve pleads, grabbing his hand, and Bucky sighs.
“No, it’s—“ he shakes his head and leans in to kiss Steve gently. “You did the right thing, Steve, that guy was an asshole,” he says, brow knitting together as he scowls. “I just wish doing the right thing didn’t do this to you.”
“You always make it better,” Steve says.
“Oh, yeah?” Bucky quirks an eyebrow. “I’m a good nurse, then?”
“You’d make a real cute nurse, I bet,” Steve smirks.
“Oh, shut up, punk,” Bucky grumbles. “And quit the squirming, Steve, I need to finish cleaning this up.”
“Will you make it all better later if I sit real still now?” Steve asks innocently, glancing up at Bucky from below his lashes and Bucky exhales sharply.
“Minx,” he says. “Don’t try to distract me to get out of this,” Bucky says.
Steve pouts. “You’re no fun.”
“The fun comes later, now be a good boy and sit still,” Bucky smirks and Steve laughs.
“Yes, Nurse Barnes.”
Following behind him a few paces, Bucky walks with him to the bathroom and sits down on the edge of the bathtub at Steve’s instruction. Now that he’s got him in the brightly lit bathroom, he can see for the first time that Bucky is filthy. Like, truly filthy. Caked in grim. From the looks of it, he hasn’t shaved since Steve saw him last, the beard that’s grown in is untamed and dirty as well.
He’s wearing the same thing he’d been wearing when the helicarriers fell and looks like he hasn’t bathed since then and cleaned his clothing. There’s dirt crusted into the straps of his uniform, under his fingernails, and caked into his hair. The boots that he’s wearing are muddy and wet, Steve wonders where this warehouse he’s been living in is.
“What did they do to you, Buck?” Steve asks him, starting to pull at the straps to take the jacket off of him, and Bucky grunts.
“Stabbed,” he murmurs, looking away from Steve, his dark hair falling like a curtain across his face.
“They brought a knife to try to fight you?” Steve snorts. “They don’t know you very well, I guess,” he tries to joke. Bucky just looks at him in almost curious confusion. “Sorry,” Steve mumbles awkwardly.
He finally gets the jacket off, no easy feat as covered in buckles and buttons and straps as it is, dirt and crusted blood falling onto the floor as he removes it. The blood has soaked through the white shirt underneath and Steve gingerly strips that off of him as well, being careful as he peels the cloth away from his wound.
As he pulls the shirt over Bucky’s head, Steve gasps. Dark bruises cover his ribs, chest, and back. Maroon and purple tinges the edges of bruises, so dark at the centers they look black. They’re patterned across his chest and back, sickly against the pallor of his skin. Clearly, the fight between him and the HYDRA agents who tried to capture him had been a nasty one.
With shaking fingers, Steve brushes over the battered skin as Bucky flinches away from him. Steve tells himself that it’s from the pain of his bruising, though he knows he was gentle. He clears his throat and pulls his hand back, returning his attention to his task. The stab wound isn’t bad, shallow but long, as if the knife was dragged down while still stuck in him, but Steve is going to need to clean it and dress it.
The problem is, Bucky is genuinely gross right now and Steve doesn’t want to just pack the wound with dirt. The serum he has will take care of infection but he’s got no way of knowing whether or not Bucky’s would, too. There’s no way to know what Zola did to him exactly but from the files, they had discovered that Bucky had been given the serum before the Howlies had even been formed.
That had hurt to find out. Because there’s no way Bucky hadn’t felt the differences in his body from the serum. Steve knew the changes he had experienced were much different in terms of physical growth but the enhancements to his senses were undeniable. Bucky must have been so freaked out if he didn’t even want to tell Steve what was going on. It made Steve’s heart break to think of Bucky suffering in silence right next to him.
“You gotta get cleaned up first,” Steve says, turning to grab a towel out of the closet to hold to the wound and Bucky looks away as he nods. “I’ll uh, I’ll cover up your wound and then we’ll get you cleaned up, okay? How’s a bath sound?” Bucky just nods and Steve doesn’t have the energy to read into his silence. “Okay, I just need to get some supplies,” he tells him. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise. Uh, hold this,” he nods to the towel and Bucky obliges.
Bucky’s clearly more than a little distressed to have Steve leave but he just nods again, fear returning to his eyes. Steve hurries down to the kitchen and grabs the biggest mug he can find and some plastic wrap before rushing back to the bathroom. Bucky is still sitting on the edge of the tub, holding the towel to his side. Steve’s glad to see that it isn’t completely soaked through with blood, though the wound is definitely still bleeding.
He moves over to the tub and starts to fiddle with the water, pulling the chain to block the drain when he gets the temperature where he wants it. Turning to Bucky, he tries to give him a reassuring smile that probably looks more like a grimace. There’s an ever-present wariness behind his eyes as Steve gets the first aid kit out of his closet.
The kit that he has is much more extensive than the average household might have given his line of work and he’s taken plenty of battlefield triage courses to be able to take care of a standard stab wound. He’s lucky it’s not deeper or didn’t nick something. He wouldn’t be able to stop internal bleeding here at his apartment and he doesn’t relish the idea of having to suggest they call in Tony or Bruce for help.
“Okay,” he says, grabbing some gauze and peroxide. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna bandage and cover it with plastic to keep it dry. And then we’ll uh—you’ll get cleaned up and then we’ll clean and dress the wound, okay?”
Bucky’s staring at him with confusion and suspicion but he nods slowly at Steve that’s about as good as he’s going to get from him so he sets to work cleaning up the area around his stab wound and taping gauze over it. When it’s covered, he fits plastic wrap to his side, using gauze tape to keep it in place.
“There,” he nods. “Should be good. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Bucky stares down at his side and then back at Steve, blinking slowly. The tub is full so he stops the faucet, steam rising off the stilling water. He turns his back to Bucky, gathering up all the things he’ll need for a bath. When he turns back, Bucky is stark naked, standing by the tub.
“Jesus, Buck, I—“ He looks up at the ceiling quickly. “I can leave y’know, give you some privacy.” He chances a glance at Bucky and the confusion on Bucky’s face only deepens at that and Steve doesn’t want to think about that too closely. He clears his throat and points to the water. “Just—just get in the tub,” he nods towards the bath and Bucky follows the order without hesitation, sinking into the water carefully.
Steve kneels next to the tub, careful to keep his eyes trained on Bucky’s face. Now that he’s getting a close-up look at him, Steve can see how truly filthy Bucky is. His hair is greasy and matted in places, caked in dirt and blood in others. His cheeks are gaunt, the cheekbones a little too sharp, and it looks like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. Steve doubts he’s been eating enough for the last several weeks.
The last time he’d seen him, Bucky had been bulky, heavier than Steve has ever seen him. But he’s dropped a lot of weight in the last month. The bulk of his metal arm makes him seem smaller, dwarfing his right arm by a lot. With all the leather stripped away, he looks a lot closer to the man Steve had known back in the 40s. And seeing him like this, vulnerable and nervous, causes a surge of protectiveness to rise in Steve’s chest. He looks so lost.
“Alright, here you go,” he hands him a washed cloth. “There’s shampoo and conditioner, a comb, soap, and uh, there’s a toothbrush on the sink for you.”
Bucky accepts the washcloth from Steve but just stares at him. “I-I don’t-“ he sputters. “It’s not allowed,” he whispers finally and Steve hates that answer. There are a lot of things he expects from HYDRA but Bucky not being allowed to bathe himself is not on that list. It throws him off balance, trips him up enough that he just stops and sputters for a second before shaking his head and forcing a painfully fake smile onto his face.
“Okay,” he says because Bucky looks so distressed about having had to admit that. “That’s fine,” he says. “I can—I can help you. Let’s, uh, let’s start with your hair okay?”
Relief floods Bucky’s face and he nods again. His skin is starting to turn slightly pink from the warmth of the water, steam rising up around them. Grabbing the coffee mug, he sinks to he knees beside the tub.
“Tip your head back,” he instructs, putting a hand behind Bucky’s head to support it and then pouring the water over his hair. Bucky’s watching him intently, his eyes tracking Steve’s moments. For his part, Steve makes sure that he moves carefully, being gentle as he wets Bucky’s hair. When it’s soaked he pours the shampoo into his hair and starts to massage it into in. It barely lathers though and he ends up rinsing it out and repeating the process several more times before Bucky’s hair starts to feel remotely clean.
Concentrating on his scalp, Steve works the dirt away from his skin, scrubbing at his scalp with the rough pads of his fingers and his nails. The knots are making it hard to work and he does his best to pull them apart with his fingers, wanting to limit how much combing out he’ll have to do. He doesn’t want to be tugging at Bucky’s scalp too much, it’ll hurt him after a while.
When he’s able to pour shampoo in and lather it to thick, creamy bubbles, he knows that he’s done his job and moves onto conditioner. He equips the comb at this point, holding the mats carefully as he brushes them through aided by the slippery conditioner. It takes a while and he ends up having to drain away the dirty water and refill the tub, wrapping Bucky up in a towel to wait, but he manages to get Bucky’s hair washed and brushed.
He’s not really sure what to do with his beard because Steve doesn’t have one himself and therefore owns no products for one but he figures shampoo and conditioner can’t be the worst thing for it and it’s better than the nothing Bucky has been doing. So he goes ahead and washes his beard as well, using the comb to get the tangles out and smooth it down against Bucky’s face. He wants to shave it away but he highly doubts that Bucky is letting him anywhere near him with a razor. And besides that, it might be good for him to keep a low profile, so he doesn’t even suggest it.
Washing the rest of Bucky is considerably more uncomfortable. The first thing he does is clean the gash on his forehead and dab at his busted lip. Neither are bleeding anymore but they’ve barely started to heal. He’ll have to get some butterflies on the gash after Bucky’s clean.
As gently as he can, he scrubs the rest of Bucky clean. Bucky looks more than a little surprised by these proceedings and he wishes that it wasn’t because he’s used to this being a lot more painful of an experience but he knows that’s the case. He’s seen the files. He keeps adding warm water to the bath as it starts to cool, refusing to let the water get cold. His mind drags up the file that described using a hose to spray him down.
…whether it be for cleanliness or punishment or to regain control, the Asset is particularly susceptible to the cold pressure hose. It’s incredibly effective in multiple applications and should be noted in his next protocol update…
He’s had plenty of time to read up on what was done to Bucky after HYDRA fell and Nat released all those files. And what he has found has made him sick to his stomach on more than one occasion but it’s also strengthened his resolve to find Bucky. Knowing what he’s been through, knowing he was out there alone. He needs to protect him.
He clears his throat and feels heat flood his cheeks as he extends the washcloth to Bucky. "Could you," he nods his head downward, "wash, uh, down there? I don't want to touch you on your," he clears his throat, "privates," he finishes lamely.
It’s not as if Steve’s never touched his dick but it feels wrong to do it now. Bucky does as he’s asked and seems even more confused by the fact that Steve won't touch him there which makes anger grow in him and he has to push it down so he doesn’t upset Bucky.
When Bucky is deemed clean, Steve wraps him in a towel and carefully takes off the plastic wrap and bandage to start cleaning and examining the wound. It’s already starting to heal, he can tell, but still, it’s a nasty cut. If this was someone without the serum, they’d need stitches and maybe some blood, but Bucky doesn’t require them and Steve doesn’t want to put him through it for no reason.
“Alright,” he says. “It—it looks like you’re going to be okay, but I need to clean it and bandage it, okay? This might be a little uncomfortable, I’m sorry,” he adds.
Whether it’s because there’s no pain or because he’s just used to it, Bucky doesn’t flinch even once while Steve disinfects and dresses the wound. He does everything he can to make it as painless as possible and there’s no way for him to know whether or not he’s being successful. The whole thing sets his teeth on edge and he wants nothing more than for this part to be done.
He makes sure to clean and close up the gash on his forehead. It’s deep, probably a knife or a shard of glass, but it’s not going to need stitches either with the way it’s already starting to heal. He puts a few butterfly bandages over it to keep it from opening up again.
When Bucky’s patched up, Steve leaves him, in a towel sitting on the lidded toilet seat, to grab some clean clothes that he can wear. He’s got a feeling that his stuff is going to be a little bit big on Bucky but it’s all he’s got so he picks out the smallest sweats he’s got and a nice, thick sweatshirt and some socks. After a second of hesitation, he grabs a pair of underwear out of his drawer. Bucky, his Bucky, that is, wouldn’t care about wearing his drawers. But he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable now.
Returning to the bathroom, he gives Bucky the clothes and helps him dress so that he doesn’t dislodge his bandages. He was right, the clothes are way too big on Bucky’s leaner frame but at least they’re clean and dry and warm.
Now that Bucky is clean, he’s not really sure what to do with him. For his part, Bucky also looks like he’s got no idea what’s coming next and that fact terrifies him. Wide-eyed, he’s staring unseeing at the bathroom floor and Steve sighs. There isn’t exactly a how-to guide that comes along with this situation and he’s more than a little bit out of his element. Sam might be better suited for this job than anyone but Bucky is at least aware of the fact that he knows Steve, Sam’s a complete stranger.
He’s got no idea what he’s supposed to do next but he knows what his Ma would do and he knows what he’d have done for Bucky if this was any 1938 and he needed to be cared for.
“Are ya hungry?”