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He looked back down to the picture in his hand. The one he found in Steve’s sketchbooks. It was one of the old pictures, with the Sergeant uniform and that cocky smile. His eyes flicked up to the mirror and what he saw had nothing to do with the man in the photograph. The haircut was a poor attempt to recreate what he had tried to explain to the barber with the help of his one arm and the photograph - longer on top and shorter on the sides than it had been back then; maybe a week or two and it came close to what he actually wanted. But the man in the picture was clean shaven and this was something he didn’t feel like trying out on his own. Not only didn’t he have the right tools, he wasn’t sure if he would feel comfortable getting rid of the stubble that was covering his cheeks and chin and upper lip. Somehow it had become a comfort hiding behind it, a stark contrast to the person he had been confronted with so many times in the last half year.
Half a year since the capsule had been opened. Half a year since people had started poking at his brain to get rid of something that wasn’t him and yet was. Half a year since it was gone and he moved to Brooklyn with Steve. Half a year since he learned he could be James Buchanan Barnes again. And half a year since he started looking desperately for a sign of this man inside of him.
Bucky looked at the picture in his hand again. He remembered when it had been taken, a candid shot one of the photographers at the Stark expo had taken before he shipped out. His mind was filled with memories and pictures and smells and feelings, he knew they existed. He just wasn’t the person who experienced them so many years ago. He was and then he just wasn’t. It was hard to explain and whenever he tried to tell Steve, opening his mouth to let the words pour out, he didn’t have it in him. Not because he was scared or because he thought Steve wouldn’t understand him. He just wanted to be this person again. Without being James Buchanan Barnes all that was left was an asset, a killer, a machine, an empty shell and Bucky didn’t want to be any of it.
So when Bucky and Steve headed to Coney Island, Bucky remembered the Cyclone and Steve throwing up and he remembered the shooting galleries, the amount of money he had spent and the girls he tried to impress. He laughed and ate and shared memories, while all the time feeling like an imposter. He knew about these events and these people, but they didn’t make him feel anything. In these moments, Bucky was afraid he was still in him. The guy who had killed a man who had fought with him, helped him, helped Steve. Numbers still made him flinch, something inside of him waiting for the switch to be turned and lose control over his mind and body. They told him that maybe he needed someone to talk to but he couldn’t imagine sitting down and talking about something he couldn’t fully remember. He told Stark he remembered all of them. Truth was, he didn’t remember even just one.
When he stood in the middle of the Hydra base, when he was overwhelmed with flashbacks and memories of a time when he was used to train more Winter Soldiers, when he saw footage of himself killing Howard, it was the first time he felt something again. He had no memory of punching Howard, choking the life out of his wife, but it was clearly him on the video. The precision with which he executed every movement made his body tremble because his muscle memory knew what he was capable off. And while he stood by and watched, he was overwhelmed by the pictures, by the extent his past actions had on his life, knowing it would forever haunt him.
And of course seeing Steve in the middle of his apartment in Bucharest had effected Bucky too, a feeling welling up he couldn’t quite name, which seemed to still be deeply buried underneath too many layers he didn’t dare touch. He followed Steve to Brooklyn because it seemed right and he had nowhere else to go. There was no way Steve would let him go and maybe it was better to stick together with both of them having no real place to go.
At first it was hard for Bucky to understand why Steve dropped that shield. This was not because Tony told him over and over again how this shield didn’t belong to him. There was more to it and while Bucky was afraid to ask, he did get his answer with time. Steve would try to make food they had liked when they were younger and as far as Bucky could remember tasted so much different, but it was the sentiment behind it he appreciated. Same with old stories about their childhood. Steve would ask him if he could remember certain moments, people, telling him about his family and the dates they went on. Of course Bucky remembered and of course he noticed how Steve’s story always ended before he was shipped out and Steve followed him into this madness. Changed and different and a lot more independent. Which was good, but also left Bucky wondering why someone like Steve needed someone like him around. Steve was good, standing up for people who needed it and only got involved when it was necessary. While Bucky did what had to be done without thinking about it too much. If he saw Steve being in trouble, he would punch that guy into the next week if necessary without even asking what had happened. And it didn’t stop there. He shot his way through the war, doing things he knew Steve wasn’t capable of doing because he believed in the good and noble. The amount of times when Bucky let the Howlies and Steve go ahead, offering to free the prisoners like Steve asked him to and then slit their throats… Bucky couldn’t remember how many times he had to clean his hands of blood with some leaves or later with snow. He did it. It had to be done and Bucky did it.
Steve wasn’t naive and by now Bucky wondered if he figured out how dirty his hands truly were, if that was the reason why he kept sticking to pre-war stories. And pre-war photographs. And footage. Bucky had found Steve watching these propaganda videos of them over and over, the carefree ones where they stood in front of the camera and just laughed. Never the ones fully geared and armed. There were also the pictures. Only a few, but well treasured. Like the one he took at the barbershop or the one he knew Steve’s mom had taken of them. They were maybe six or seven, Bucky’s knee blue just like Steve’s knobbly one, their clothes neat. Steve was missing one of his front teeth and Bucky still had a black eye from their last back alley battle, but they smiled straight into the camera, arms thrown across each other’s shoulders. Those were the pictures Steve looked at, and these were the memories he liked to share. And this was the James Buchanan Barnes he wanted back.
Bucky was trying so hard to give him that. He shared stories and remembered some of his own, feeling pleased whenever he found Steve smiling upon the memory he summoned up. It was this reaction that made Bucky try so much harder. Steve had risked so much for him, giving up the suit and some of his friends just for him; this was the least he could do.
Once again, Bucky checked his appearance in the mirror. The khaki sweater with the left sleeve pinned up, the beads of his dog tags peeking out at the neckline, and some chinos, clothes he had all bought by himself according to the pictures he found. It was different from the old style, but the closest he could find and he knew he was doing the right thing. At least he hoped he was.
So when Steve returned from his meeting with Sam, Bucky was still in the bathroom, trying to adjust to the person he was seeing in the mirror.
“Buck? You home?”
Instead of an answer, Bucky stepped out of the bathroom and walked into the living room. Steve was just toeing his shoes off, not immediately looking up and when he did, it was hard for Bucky to read his reaction. His mouth fell open, eyes growing a bit bigger.
“You cut your hair.”
“Makes it easier for me. Can’t always ask you to help me with it.” Bucky had rehearsed that answer and he actually thought it was convincing. The long hair had been his safety blanket, maybe even something to hide behind. Now he felt naked, exposed even and when Steve stepped closer and pulled the tags out from underneath his sweater, he was skinned to the bone.
Steve had given him the replicas a couple of weeks ago. His were gone since the fall into the ravine and he never wondered why Steve would get a copy of them. Yet he hoped for this to feel right, to remember the man who wore nearly identical ones so many years ago as he followed the skinny guy from Brooklyn into the jaws of death.
For a short moment, Bucky thought it worked. Steve seemed pleased, happy even. Happier than he had seen him in a while, but it was only for a moment before he closed off and let the tags fall back onto his chest.
“Tell me you didn’t do all of this for me?” There was something pleading in his eyes and it confused Bucky to the point he could feel the old anger welling up inside of his chest again. The one that made him think he couldn’t do anything right. So for now, he just tried to play along.
“What you mean with that? You mean the hair?”
“The hair. The clothes...you look...different.”
“Do I?” Without even wanting to, Bucky reached for the sketchbook on the coffee table and turned it upside down. Picture after picture of the old James Buchanan Barnes dropped out and then, a moment later, he leafed through the pages, showing Steve the drawings he had found. “Isn’t this what you see? What you want? Here. You’ve got it now.”
Steve caught the book when Bucky tossed it at him, looking as confused and hurt as Bucky felt angry and wrong in his own skin.
“I never said you have to change because there is nothing wrong about you. Yes, you’ve changed but…”
“Don’t think you haven’t changed! You’re not how I remember you either. And I wish I was like the ol’ Bucky,” he interrupted him, feeling his own breath hitting Steve’s face in warm puffs. This was too close and too harsh and Bucky felt like running. Running was what he knew, what he felt comfortable with.
“That’s not what I…”
“The propaganda films, the pictures, your sketchbook, the stories you tell me? All of that speaks a different language, pal. Don’t say it’s not what you want.”
Steve looked like someone had slapped him and Bucky was sure he had just done that and so much more. Why couldn’t Steve take this as what it was, an offer? Why was he questioning it, telling him it was once again not the version he wanted? Bucky watched him place the sketchbook back on the table before he crouched down to pick the pictures up. “You’re Bucky to me. Always have been. We all change and of course I wish for things to be different…”
Again Bucky interrupted him, not giving him the chance to explain himself because for Bucky there was nothing to explain. He had seen and heard it with his own eyes and ears and what else was there for Steve to explain? Instead he exploded once again, words pouring out without him censoring them.
“No, you don’t fucking get it, Steve. I want to be this other me for you, I just don’t remember how. I completely lost myself and patched the broken pieces together the best I could. They are crooked and not how they are supposed to be, but I still put one foot in front of the other and keep on going and do you wanna know why? Because the only freaking thing I remembered, I carried with me through everything, was you.”
And because Bucky was so good at running, that was what he did. He grabbed his cap, jacket, keys and slipped into his shoes and was out of the apartment. Bucky didn’t know where to go and why he left in the first place, the sheer anger in his chest fueling him and maybe it was better for him to leave before things were getting real ugly.
How could Steve deny this was not what he wanted, when it was all he focused on, all he shoved into Bucky’s face? It was as if he told him he was a broken mess and reminding him how much was missing wouldn’t get him what he wanted. No amount of words could convey how furious Bucky was, his feet carrying him down the sidewalk and while he thought he didn’t have a destination in mind, he found himself at Prospect Park in front of the Captain America statue. Some people left notes, saying how much they missed him and how he was needed and while Bucky still wanted to be upset and angry, stewing in his feelings, he started to read all of them.
Captain America was still a huge symbol to the world, maybe just as big as it had been seventy years ago, but Steve had made a decision. He had made a sacrifice which he didn’t seem to regret and when Bucky looked back at the past six months, not once did he come across unhappy. In fact, there was an easiness in him he had seen the last time before the war. It was in the little details like his posture, how he stopped reaching for a shield that wasn’t there anymore when a car backfired. Bucky remembered when he found him picking up a pencil again months after they moved into the apartment. It was true, they both had changed and Bucky wondered if Steve even noticed that change within himself.
Putting this into perspective, looking at the anger Bucky was feeling and the words he threw into Steve’s face, he realized he wasn’t angry with Steve. If any he was jealous. Steve was slowly finding his way back to who he’d used to be while taking what he had become over the course of the last years with him. He was still that bashful guy who would flush curiously when someone complimented him, the decent guy who held open doors open for men and women, and the same man who would point out wrong when he saw it.
And then there was Bucky who felt as if he was two people who just didn’t fit together. Maybe because he was missing the one piece that was taken from him, the one James Buchanan Barnes had been fighting against for so long and lost so many times to. Bucky felt just so lost and alone. Unless he was with Steve. Steve who was so patient with everything Bucky asked from him, who showed him to tie his shoes with one arm and sew the left sleeves of his shirts up so they wouldn’t dangle around. Not once did he make him feel like a burden or as if his request was ridiculous or annoying him. Bucky realized how much he took him for granted because Steve had always been there, but the majority of times it was Bucky taking care of Steve. Now the tables were turned and the longer Bucky thought about it, the more he realized, the more he loathed himself.
He was angry because he couldn’t be the man Steve deserved, the one Steve leaned onto, instead of the guy who killed so many people, not only for Steve but also the innocent ones, while Steve always tried to do his best. Everything Bucky threw at Steve was actually directed at himself and he felt like a fool for not realizing sooner.
By the time he headed back home, it was already dark and Bucky was wondering what he could say to Steve to make him understand how sorry he was. He was never good at finding the right words, let alone groveling. However, Steve deserved a proper apology, one in which Bucky could make it clear how much Steve meant to him and how much he had overseen in the past weeks. He even stopped at a store to get some flowers, laughing as he paid for them and asked the cashier if it was a thing to give a man flowers as an apology. Apparently the cashier thought it was and told him what a good guy he was for thinking of this little gesture.
Still Bucky felt stupid when he arrived and stepped into the apartment. The light in the living room was turned on and he could hear the soft stroke of pencil on paper. It was good to know Steve was there and even better he felt like drawing despite their earlier fight. Still, Bucky took his time shrugging out of the jacket and toeing his shoes off before he picked the flowers back up he had placed on the little table with the bowl where they kept their keys. He still had no idea what to say, how to start or even if Steve wanted to hear a word he was saying. Yet he didn’t have to worry because he couldn’t even think about a way to start when Steve spoke up.
“I never wanted to give you the feeling as if you’re not the one I used to know.”
Bucky watched Steve, the way he sat on the couch in his wifebeater and sweats, feet propped up on the table so he could balance the sketchbook on his thighs, the straightness of his spine and the little tilt of his head. In this moment, Bucky was back in Steve’s old apartment, back in forty-two. Maybe it was in the way his body language didn’t change or how his voice was still the same, but he could feel himself again. He could feel James Buchanan Barnes slowly coming to life again, and all it needed was coming to terms with who he was angry with. He wanted to tell Steve all of it, but Steve wasn’t finished and this time he owed him to finish.
“We both have changed, we were forced to. It didn’t change who we were underneath and what we carry inside. I’d walk through Nazi Germany for the Bucky you’re now just like I did back then.”
“Carter and Stark put your ass on a plane,” Bucky blurted out and automatically took a step back. “Sorry. Go on.”
“Yeah, they did. But if not, if they hadn’t taken that risk, I’d have come nonetheless. What I wanna say is, you’ve changed and I’ve changed. What didn’t change are my feelings for you.” Steve’s voice was getting meeker and meeker to the point Bucky had to step closer. The living room, despite Steve sketching, was only dimly lit, the few lamps covering everything with a golden glow. He had to step up to the back of the couch until he could see what Steve was drawing and connecting it with what he had just said. The drawing was of Bucky before he went back into cryo in Wakanda, with what he thought was a hopeful smile on his face. While he looked at it, Bucky realized what had been buried underneath all these layers he never dared touching, the layers of self-hatred and -loathing, the anger and frustration, and most importantly regret. Regret about never talking to Steve how much he was willing to do for him, instead opting to do it without his knowledge.
Unlike Steve. There was Azzano, dropping that shield not only once but twice, the last time the final time, pulling a helicopter out of the sky; turning his back onto his friends, even the times they went on a double date and Steve only came with them because Bucky asked him to. All of these things Steve did in clear sight of Bucky, always making sure he saw what length he was willing to go. His silent confession because every word could have meant a possible rejection. Even now Steve seemed to be dreading Bucky turning him down, not looking at him or facing him and all Bucky wanted was to see his face. James wanted to see Steve’s face; he wanted it to be the first thing he saw after being gone for so long.
“I got you flowers.” It was the first thing that came to his mind and it did the trick. A bit confused, Steve turned his head and looked at the bouquet of flowers Bucky got at the store. It was a bunch of wild flowers, nothing too fancy, but he felt these fitted him the best. “I wasn’t sure if that was something you do for your pal so I asked the cashier. She said, it was probably the sweetest thing she saw another guy doing for a friend.”
There was this little flinch when Bucky said the word ‘friend’ before Steve put the mask back on that he had learned to wear so perfectly. The one that made it impossible for anyone to figure out how he was actually feeling underneath it all. Bucky has seen him wearing it when people called him names or when he had pulled himself up on his feet after a fight, knowing how much every word and every step actually pained him. Bucky knew he had to do something, say something, to tear that mask down again without making Steve feel as if he was tossing around words to make him feel better without meaning them.
“But you’re more than a friend. And more than a best friend. That’s what I meant earlier when I said, you were what pulled me through all of this. That...that made me fight back. I know it must have been you because, only you could get through to me. I know you like the back of my hand. Even now. I know every gesture and expression by heart.” Helplessly, he looked down at the flowers in his hand as if in hopes for them to give them a hint if he was doing okay, if he made sense and if his words had any effect on Steve. It was easier looking at the flowers than at Steve, who was slowly getting up from the couch.
“I wasn’t angry at you. I had to get my head out of my ass to figure that one out. And when I did, I realized I was angry at myself. At me and the people who robbed us of our time together. When I see you looking at all these pictures, all I see is what I could do for you back then. It reminds me of what I can’t do anymore.”
His eyes were still locked on the flowers, which Steve pulled out of his grip just to take his hand in his own, loosely holding it.
“You can do more than you know and you’re more than your past. And if I have to tell you that every night until it gets through your thick skull, then I’ll do that. Just...don’t run anymore.”
When Bucky looked up, he realized Steve’s mask was gone and he could see how scared Steve had been of him not coming back. It didn’t surprise him and while he wished Steve thought more of him, he also came to accept they both needed to get to know the parts that were new.
“I won’t.”
“Good. And now I wanna show you something.” Before Bucky could react, Steve tugged on his arm and led him over to the couch where he sat down and took the sketchbook back into his hand. He had no idea what this was about, just watching Steve pat the spot next to him. “Come on. I won’t bite.”
Reluctantly, Bucky sat down, not sure what to expect after their already pretty heavy talk and so he waited for Steve to show him whatever he wanted to share.
“You said all I see is the old Bucky. The one before the war and when I was still ninety pounds soaking wet. And yes, sometimes I look at you and that’s what I see. Just like the days when I look in the mirror and see the skinny guy who got his ass beaten in a back alley. Sometimes that’s what I want for the two of us again.” When Steve was finished, he opened the sketchbook and showed Bucky what was inside. In the first drawing Bucky wasn’t alone. It was Steve and Bucky at a dance hall and while Bucky was pretty spot on, Steve’s face and body didn’t seem right.
“Before you say anything, I know. Self-portraits are hard. Even more so when you don’t have anything as reference. I have to go from memory. But this is what I also see, when I look at you. And this.” Steve turned the page and it was a drawing of Bucky. No, Bucky corrected himself. This was The Winter Soldier. There was the muzzle and him glaring up from the paper, some details of the jacket weren’t correct but it was clearly him. “These sketchbooks are my diary. I made this after D.C. when I was still in hospital. I had to put it on paper as a proof it was you. That you are still alive. And then this…”
Again, Steve turned the page and this time it was Bucky in Bucharest, in his apartment, looking like he was ready to run. Steve gave Bucky enough time to look at it before he flipped another page and another, always making sure Bucky took in what he saw. Bucky playing with Clint’s dog. Bucky laughing. Bucky in the armchair that stood opposite of the couch they were sitting on, looking out of the window.
“I always see you, Bucky. And if I draw more of the one before the war, then it’s because of the time of the year.”
Confused, Bucky turned to Steve. It was hard to pull his eyes away from the drawings, feeling ashamed for not seeing them before or not noticing how much attention Steve was paying to him. He was ready to apologize again, but Steve’s remark left him wondering.
“The day you fell. The anniversary comes closer and maybe it’s something like survivor's guilt. Not following you, not getting you out because we both know we could have gone home after Azzano. Things could have been different and…”
“But they are not,” Bucky cut in. There was no malice in his words or sign he was upset because of all the what ifs Steve was going through. It was a fact and one he had made his peace with. “It is what it is and for me all that matters is we’re doing it together. To the end of the line, pal.” As if to seal his words, he held his hand out for Steve to take and when he did, Steve also pulled him closer until their foreheads touched. Bucky’s eyes flicked down to Steve’s lips and before he could overthink it, he just closed that tiny gap. Yet, Steve pulled back a second later, leaving Bucky to once again doubt if he had made the right choice, but when he looked at him, he just found him smiling.
“Just so you know? I expect more flowers and more of this from now on.”