Chapter Text
Let’s get one thing straight, Steve Rogers wasn’t much for believing in miracles. He had grown up believing in them, until reality hit and that idea became a bitter one. After all a world where he once gained everything and then lost it, couldn’t be a miraculous one.
But looking at James Buchanan Barnes as he was now, huddled in a blanket in a SHIELD facility near New York he felt like he just might have found one.
Bucky looked gaunt, he was pale and his eyes were so blank that Steve worried for a second if anyone was even in there at all. But the minute that he stepped into the holding cell, Bucky’s whole demeanor changed. The blank eyes flickered upwards to meet his, filling with light, and spoke with a voice that Steve hadn’t heard with so much warmth since 1945
“Stevie?”
Summer 1928, Brooklyn
“You ain’t really that big are ya?”
Those had been the last words Steve had heard before he had been unceremoniously pushed to the ground by a big boy with red hair who was about two times as big as him.
Now as he sat in a muddy patch of dirt and was blinking out the glare of the sunlight behind the boy, he felt just a little bit like crying.
His mama had always told him that he should always do what was right and he thought he had been when he had tried to shove that big boy away from Susie Schultz, as he had been pulling her brown pigtails. But he hadn’t even been phased by Steve’s feeble attempts to push him.
Now he was on the ground, and could feel the dampness of the mud slowly creeping in through the back of his shorts, the shorts that his mama had just given him 2 weeks before, and Steve Rogers felt like crying.
Until, suddenly like a thunder, a voice echoed through the street “Now Billy Jones is that any way to treat a lady?”
And bounding up came a boy, not much older than Steve himself grinning like a madman. He had unruly brown hair and blue eyes, with a smile more blinding than the sunlight reflecting off the new buildings in the heart of New York.
“What would your mama say if she saw you doin’ this, hurtin’ a girl?” the boy admonished, widening his eyes, and Billy Jones lit up brighter red than a firetruck. He mumbled something incoherently under his breath and then turned tail and ran. Susie then thanked the boy profusely and kissed his cheek, causing the boy to chuckle, before turning back to her abandoned game of jump rope.
The boy then turned to Steve, sitting on the ground and looking at the boy with that brilliant smile with amazement. He put out a hand out to Steve and grinned. Steve took the hand and he was pulled upright.
“Don’t mind Billy, his mama and my mama go to the same book club so he knows I’ll tell on ‘im.” said the boy confidently.
“I’m James, by the way, James Buchanan Barnes. But you can call me Bucky”, Bucky said as he shook their joint hands. And as Steve looked at the boy who was grinning broadly and shaking his hand vigorously, he knew that he found someone special.
SHIELD Base, 2014
“He’s fine Natasha, I swear” Steve said irritatedly, running his hands through his hair and looking at her with tired eyes.
He hadn’t even gotten the chance to respond to Bucky before SHIELD agents came flooding into the room and forcibly removed him on “orders from the Widow” because she was a “higher security clearance level.”
“No, Steve he isn’t” Natasha repeated for the hundredth time since she had entered the empty boardroom to find Steve sitting, annoyed at a chair. She crossed her arms and leaned up against the wall.
“This isn’t just Bucky Barnes we’re talking about, it’s the Winter Soldier. And as much as I know you don’t like to hear it he is Hydra’s weapon. So him showing up here unannounced with just a blanket wrapped around himself isn’t enough to prove that he isn’t a threat to everybody in this building.” Natasha finished giving Steve a pointed look.
“But he isn’t to me,” Steve almost pleaded “He’s just Bucky to me and I haven’t seen him, as himself, since ‘45”
“He can’t be himself again, Steve.” Natasha said in a firm voice “The things that happen in the Red Room changes you. It manipulates you and twists you until you don’t think about anything other than the orders given to you. God knows I didn’t. I doubt he’ll ever be just Bucky Barnes again.”
Steve was silent for a second before meeting Natasha’s eyes, determination hot in his eyes. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try like hell” he said in a quiet voice. Natasha stared scrutinizingly at him but he stood firm. She finally sighed and pulled herself off the wall; she walked towards him and leaned forward on the table, looking at his face searchingly.
“If he makes one wrong move, we are putting him down” She said grimly, and before Steve could say a word, she was already walking out the door. He hurried to follow her.
The hallway outside the room was brightly lit, and was crawling with agents. Natasha pulled one out of the throng and asked where the Soldier was. “He’s still in containment, ma’am” the agent said, a little nervously looking over to Steve as though he was about to burst out in a run towards it as he fidgeted behind Natasha. Natasha brushed passed the man and headed down the corridor to the containment unit. The guards posted at the door took one look at her and opened the door, not even sparing a glance at Steve.
The door opened to reveal the room, with Bucky in the same position he was in an hour ago, except with a tight, worried expression on his face, a big difference from the Soldier’s mask of indifference.
The minute he saw Steve he leapt up and ran towards him, ditching the thick, ragged blanket he had been wearing tightly around himself. But before he could even touch Steve, Natasha pulled out a knife, Steve seriously wondered if she could conjure them at this point, and with one hand digging into his shoulder, held it at Bucky’s throat.
Bucky held both his hands up. He glanced at Steve with an expression that Steve knew all too well from his days with the Howling Commandos. He was in soldier mode, and he wore the same expression as when he thought they were captured and was ready to fight. Bucky was about to move and, before he could even think, Steve went into captain mode.
“Stop”
Steve’s voice echoed through the tiny holding room, Bucky froze in place and stared at Steve in confusion. And then, with a sense of amazement, Steve realized Bucky had listened to him.
Steve stared at Bucky, who seemed to be looking at him with bemusement written all over his features, and he knew for certain, the person in front of him wasn’t the Winter Soldier. There was no way this was the same man who just 6 months prior had beaten him, almost to death, on the helicarrier.
The minute the order had left Steve’s mouth, Bucky had gone into a relaxed still position, a far cry from the Soldier’s calculated and precise movements. That coupled with the almost immediate response to his order, and Steve knew that it was Bucky Barnes standing in front of him.
“Steve” Natasha’s tight voice brought him out of his reverie. She was looking at Bucky with a bit of apprehension. She kept the knife against Bucky’s throat, clearly still not trusting him, but slowly lifted her hand off his shoulder.
It was coated with red.
“What the hell” Steve rushed around them to look at Bucky’s back and he couldn’t help but take in a sharp intake of breath.
His back had a deep gash at the very center that seemed to be cut very jaggedly, as though the person had rushed through the cut. The cut was broad, Steve swore he could see spine, and blood seemed to be flowing out now that the blanket had been thrown aside, which Steve now realized had been wrapped tightly around Bucky to staunch the flow of the blood.
“What happened to you Buck” Steve whispered
Winter 1935, Brooklyn
“What the hell happened Steve” Bucky was at the door of the tiny room his ma had set up his cot in and he looked furious; which, Steve granted, he had a right to be.
He had gotten into a fight, and then due to his weaker-than-wet-paper immune system and the harshness of the Brooklyn winter, promptly caught a bad cold. Now he was buried under 3 thin blankets that went up to his chin and every breath came out as a wheeze.
Bucky marched up to his bed but then sat down gently on the cot and cradled Steve’s face turning his Steve’s head left and right taking note of his injuries.
Steve mentally winced in his head. Right now Bucky was probably seeing an ugly discolored black eye with patches of deep purple and blue, along with a busted up lip and a couple of red scratches. Not to mention his pale sick face, which made the injuries stand out even more.
“You should’a seen the other guy” Steve tried to grin but it came out more of a grimace with his busted lip.
“God Stevie, you gotta stop doin’ this” Bucky sighed as he brushed away some hair off of Steve’s face. “Y’know how much your ma worries, and it’s winter, times are gettin’ harder. I’ve been givin’ your ma what money I can earn - hush now you know your medical bills ain’t payin’ themselves - but you know better than to go off into a fight and then catch a cold while you’re at it”
“But they were insulting you, Buck” Steve finally said, voice cracking on the word you. “They were sayin’ you were a fairy, otherwise why else would you be hangin’ around someone like me” Steve’s hands took the sheets in his hands and balled them up, looking away from Bucky.
It had been humiliating. He hadn’t even been doing anything, just walking back home from school when a couple of boys had cornered him in an alley and started jeering out insults. It hadn’t even had an effect on him till they mentioned Bucky and his constant tie to Steve.
They threw around words like “fairy” and “fuckin’ queers”. They told him that if “Bucky hadn’t hung around him maybe he wouldn’t have turned out to be such a fag.” And then before he knew it he had taken a swing at the biggest of the boys, only to be held down by the other two while the other took a couple of good swings at his face. They had left him in a snowdrift in the alley, where one of his neighbors found him and walked him home.
Bucky was silent for a long minute, then Steve felt him get up, only to feel a rush of cold air as the blankets were lifted off his body. He turned to look up at Bucky, who looked down at him with an emotion that Steve couldn’t quite name.
“Move over” Steve obliged and he felt Bucky’s much larger and warmer form slide next to his. Then, to his surprise, he felt Bucky’s arms slide around his waist and pull him against his warm chest, until he was close enough to hear the steady beat of his heart and the rhythmic sounds of his breath. Steve’s already weak heart stuttered a little in his chest.
“Aren’t we a little too old for this?” Steve murmured into the coarse material of Bucky’s shirt, but he stayed still in his arms.
“Being a heater is no trouble, especially for the fella who protected my honor, wouldn’t ya say” Bucky teased, whispering directly into Steve’s ear. Steve flushed, both from the comment and Bucky’s low, rough voice in his ear.
Steve forced out a laugh. He flusteredly replied “Not like there’s anything to defend, there’s no way you’re a queer anyway. Just ask Sarah Marshall or Stacy Lee”
Bucky was silent for a while and his arms tightened around Steve. Steve was worried Bucky was offended by the insinuation so he added “I just didn’t think what they were saying was right” Bucky’s arms relaxed a little but he kept his tight hold.
“I know you didn’t, you punk”
“Jerk”